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P E E C H 



OF THE 



HON, THISTAM SURGES, 



.05' 



ilt l\ie Public Biiiuet 

« 
<IIV£N HIM BY 

llIE CITIZENS OF NEW-YOBK, 

MAECH 30, 183L 



^- 



TO 



THIC nOS. TillSTAM BURGESS 



ri^'Si^ 



Ncis- York, 3Iarc!i 31,1831. 

HON. TrJSTAM BUKGE3, Esq. 

Dear Sir: 

The undersigned, comtnittee of arrangements for the public dinner, by 
accepting and partaking of which, yesterday, you have honoured a large 
nunaber of our citizens, beg leave to request from you a copy of the speech, 
with which they were favoured on that occasion, for publication. 

We are, Sir, 

Very respectfully, 

Your Obedient Servants, 

Ellis Potter, Thomas R. Smith, 

II. Booraom, H. G. Guion, 

P, H. Schenck, Seth Geer, 

Joseph Hoxie,^ Wm. L. Stone, 

J. Cult, " A. Chandler, 

Laac Pierson, E. H. Ely, 
Thomas A. Ronalds, 



Answer. 

New-York^ Aprill, 1831. 
Gentlkmkn : 

I have received your very flattering note of yesterday, and am too sen- 
sible of the honour done to me by it, to refuse a compliance with your re-, 
quest. What I have said in your ear, at the social board, I am perfectly 
willing to publish in the hearing of the whole people. 

i have the honour to be, very respectfully, Gentlemen, 

Your ob't. Serv't., 

\ , TRISTAM BURGES. 



[The following arc. copies of tbe letters interchanged between the com- 
mittee of arrangements and their guest, tendering and accepting this tribute 
of respect to the Rhode Island Orator. They are published to prevent any 
misapprehension which may liave been entertained as to the real object c; 
this ftjslive tribute to worth and learning. ] 



New- York, 2M Feb. ISS'i. 
Hosj. Tmtam Euicges.- 

Sir. — Entertaining a high degree of respect for your ciiuract,er and servi* 
(•:v6 in Congress, the nndersigned, a committee 8})pointed for that purpose, 
heg leave to ask your acceptance of an invitation to a puhlic dinner to be 
given in this city on your return from Washington, at such time as may suit 
your convenience — which time, if the invitation be accepted, you will 
p!ef.se lo designate. The duty imposed upon us, of tendering this mark of 
coiilidence and respect, is rendered the more pleasing from your recent able 
and eloquent exposition of the Law of Nations, in respect of the character, 
rights, and duties of foreign Ministers, and from (he independence and fear- 
lessness ofyourexposure ofthe corruption ofjhe present administration, par 
licularly as il appears in the appointment ofthe gentleman who yet liolds 
the credejsillals of Ministerof the United Slates to the Court of St Peters- 
burgh. '^ 

We have the honor to be 

Very respectfully, &c. -^ 

Ellis Potter, Thomas R. Sofith, 

if. Booream, H. G. Guion, 

P. H. Schenck. Seth Gear, ' 



Joseph Hoxie, Wm. L. Stone 

J. Colt, A. Chandler, 

Isaac Pierson, E. H. Ely, 

Thos. A. Ronalds. 



Wmhinglon, March 9tb, 1831- 
Messrs. Ellis Potter, H. Booraem, P. H. Schenck, &c. 

Gentlemen : — I have received your letter expressing your approbation of 
iiiiy Congressional service, and requesting me to accept an invitation to a 
public dinner to be given to me in New-York, on my return from Wash- 
ington. 

ff am too much honoured by this request to deny myself the pleasure of 
accepting your invitation. You will, I hope,, excuse my delay in answering 
your letter. 1 was desirous •' to designate the day" when 1 could be in 
New-York, as you requested me to do. I delayed my answer for that pur- 
pose. — The calls on my attention in this ciSy to \\\v. alTairs of my friends, 
which I have been compelled to postpone till after the adjournment of 
Congress, will detain me here so long that I cannot name any day earlier 
than the 30tli instant,— On that day I can meet you in ISew-York, and re- 
ceive the much unmerited honor of your hospita!!!}'. 
J have the honor to be, gentlemen, 

v.'itU the higliesl respect, your ob't serv't. 

TRI8TAM Bi-JBGES; 



fur^tant to tl'ie suggesllon of Mr, Surges, as to the day,arrangemenis 
were made for the Dinner, on Wednesday, March 30th, 

The company having assembled in the receiving apartments, were usher- 
ed into the grand banqueting hall at G o'clock. Gen. Jacob R. Van Rensse- 
laer presided, assisted by Peter H. Schenck, Adoniram Chandler, H. Boo- 
raem and Thomas R. SnVith, Esqrs. as Vice Presidents. The company 
was, as might be expected, a political one, and consisted of nearly 300 gen- 
fiemen, including the guests. Among the latter were the venerable Go!. 
TjumbuU, Don. Thomas Gener, a Spanish exile and President of the Cor- 
tez, which was dissolved !)y the French army ia i8'^3, Col. S. L, Kfiapy. 
and several others. 



After the cloth was removed, the following toasts were given, accoojp*- 
Died by appropriate airs from a superior band of music. 

1. The Constitution of the United States. — It has withstood foreign violencd 
and intestine commotion. The wisdom, virtue, and valor of Ame^icaD5^ 
will sustain it against the treachery of those who have sworn to support it. 

2. The President of the United States.^Whea the office shall be bettep 
filled, the nation will be better governed. 

[This toast was received with repeated and unanimous bursts of ap- 
plause.] 

3. National Industry and Internal Improvements.— Iht first protected by 
laws really "judicious;" the last, unobstructed by that obedience to the 
will of the people which places a veto on their enactments. 

4. Henry 'Clay.— The successful diplomatist, — the distinguished statesman, 
— the accomplished orator. The genius of America beckons him to the Ca- 
pital. 

[The raptures with which this toast was received, it is impossible for us 
to describe. Three times successively did the company rise spontaneously, 
as one man, and repeat their cheers three, six, and nine times.] 

Silence having at length been restored, the President rose and addressed 
the company to the following effect : — 

We have met on this occasion to perform a most pleasing and acceptable 
service. We have met not for the purpose of bowing at the footstool of 
power to dt-precate its wrath or implore its mercy, nor yet to ask a partici- 
pation of its favours ; but for the purpose of bearing our testimony in fa- 
vour of an iiKlividual who, with an ardor, a zeal, and talent seldom surpass- 
ed, or even equalled, has ventured to attack the enemy in his strong hold,, 
and strip him of the false covering under which he has deluded and deceiv- 
ed ihe people. 

The sentiment has so often been expressed with apparent if not in sober 
earnestness, that party spirit is essential to the preservation of the rights and 
liberties of a free people, that it is considered by the many as a sound poli- 
tical axiom. If by this spirit is meant an unceasing and vigilant but candid 
scrutiny into the conduct of our rulers, applauding the right and condemn- 
ing the wrong, supporting the authors of good and opposing the advocates 
of bad measures, no individual will yield a more ready assent to the senti- 
ment than myself. But if the spirit is only to be found in a blind attach- 
ment and devotion to men, who, under the specious pretext of exclusive or 
superior aiiachment to (he rights of the people seek their own elevation to, 
and continuance in, power, without regarding the means by which the end 
is to be attained, I disclaim it entirely — that spirit degenerates and becomes 
a spirit of faction, a- fiend threatening ruin and destruction to every thing 
mostvaluable to freemen. The right and freedom of opinion on the most im- 
portant of all subjects, is guaranteed by our constitution to: every raembec 
of the community. Should any man in office attempt to usurp the power 
of constraining the exercise of' this right, he would ensure to himself the 
condemnation of all men ; and yet the powers that be, proscribe the freedom 
of opinion as to the conduct of ourrulers, or their fitness for office ; and havts 
the impudence and effrontery to rest their claim to political preferment on 
the exercise of this very proscription. If the people of this country can 
be brought to submit to its exercise, by any man or set of men, they will 
prove themselves fit subjects for its application, and merit the punishment 
which will be inflicted on them. But I trust this will not be our lot. Whea 
1 look around me on this numerous and respectable assemblage of my fel- 
low-citizens, between whom ditfereni opinions were honestly entertained 
on the measures of former administrations, united on this occasion for the 
noble purpose of vindicating our constitution, of driving from power, by 
the indignant voice of an injured and insulted people, those who have abus- 

a^ 



6 

fill Ihcif confidence, and of calling to the public service those who have 
distingiiishcd themselves by an uniform course of patriotic exertion in fa-? 
votir of the best interests of their country, I am bound to hope and believe 
Ihat there is yet a redeeming spirit in the people which will guard, protect, 
aiid secure our free institutions from the pollution of unhallowed and hypo- 
cntacal professors. I yet hope and believe, that the warning voices of the 
i w worthies set as sentinels, will be heard and regarded by the people of 
ib ise r^nited States. 

We li;ave been taught by the precepts of our fathers, and the bright ex- 
aoxplo of those illustrious men who founded, reared, and, as they fondly 
hopecj, .secured our republican institutions, that intelligence and virtue were 
•essential to their support ; and we have directed our attention and applied 
oiu* resources to tlie attaininent of these farourite and all-important objects 
by a general diffusion of the means of education. If there be any truth in 
this position, how rapidly downward must we deem our course when we 
behold in those to whom the management of our public concerns is en- 
trusted, ignorance most profound, and practice? which would in private life 
banish from the society of decent men their authors, justified and applauded 
by those in power — when we compare the talent and learning of former 
with the present administration, we are compelled to exclaim, hoic are the 
mighti^ fallen ! 

We h&ve beheld this Administration selecting as the representative of a 
great, free, pov.erful, and independent nation, to advocate, sustain, and pro- 
tect het* interests, at the Court of org of the greatest and most powerful 
jnonarchs of the Eastern World, an individual destitute of every qualifica- 
tion for the station ; who appeared there only to render himself supremely 
ridiculous, and to disgrace the government of his country ; and then, by 
Ijermission, absent himself and wander, wander, wander, wheresoever hi3 
follies or his propensities might lead him, at the sacrifice of the people's 
money »rid the nation's glory. We have beheld the shocking spectacle of a 
mutila.tton of official documents and records for the double purpose of 
rasting an odium ?ipon an honest and honourable man, who had boldness 
and firmness enough to prefer an independence of sentiment and action, 
with Vi'at.t and poverly staring in his front, to the disgrace of avowing a pre- 
ference which his judgment condemned, and for protecting from ignomy, 
moniempt, and scorn, the base and profligate minion of a corrupt adminis- 
tralion. Shall these things continue, and shall such men rule over us * 
Forbid )•: Heav;Mi, forbid it love of country. The patriot's best and most 
cherished reward is the grateful acknowledgment of a free people, — the first 
duty of the free is to sustain, to encourage, and reward witii their ardent 
nppro!»nion those who fearlessly support their rights, unawed by power, 
ii-id unseduced by the promise or hope of other reward. In conclusion, 
^;:ud tbfc Chairman, allow me to propose the following toast ' — 

Our Honoured Gup.st. — His able support of the Constitution— his lucid ex- 
prtsjtions of international Law — and his fearless exposure of a corrupt ad- 
ministration, command the admiration of the country, and entitle him to 
its gratitude and honour. 

The applause with which this sentiment was given, rung to the echo, and 
was long continued. Mr. Burgesthen rose and addressed the company as- 
loUows : ^ 

Mr. President ani> Gentlemen: — 

I tliank you, most cordially I thank you. All I Could say would telF 
you a very small part only of those feelings given to me by your expressions^ 
of kindness and consideration towards me^ and my very ineflScient efforts 
in the public service. From my earliest recollection to the present mo- 
ment, th'e approbation of my fellow-labourers has enlivened my hopes, 
cheered my exertions, and been dear to my heart. — Whether guiding the 
plough, or wielding the instruments of mechanic labour, the employments 
of my earlier life ; whether engaged in forensic toils, at the calls of my 



friends, or in the service of our common country, so dear to us all; that ap^- 
probation has been among my most engaging motives. 1 have fallen be- 
hind many, in success, but i have endeavored to keep in pace with the fore- 
most, in zeal and diligence. When I look around on these splendid accom- 
paniments, associated by your kindness with those efforts in the cause of 
the nation, though I must be more, or less, than human, not to feel gratified, 
and to attempt some expression of that feeling ; yet I cannot be vain enough 
to arrogate all I see, and hear, to myself merely, who am but the inconsi- 
derable occasion, and not the ultimate object, of all these preparations, 
these displays of national feeling, these genuine oblations to elevated pa- 
triotism. 

If we have been told, men are born to consume the fruit of the earth, and 
there be those who might look on all these provisions of the table, and on 
us as assembled here, with no better purpose than ordinary refection, the 
mere every day operations of mastication and swallowing, such men may 
best take their viands by themselves, each one gnawing his bone, and growl- 
ing his orisons, if he make any, in the solitude of his own den. The table 
has, by the customs of all nations, been consecrated to the purest riles of 
hospitality. Among the most ferocious warriors, hostilities cease ; truce 
and peace are, for the time, established, the moment they have taken salt 
together from the same stand. Of all those w^ho dipt their bread, at the 
same table, in the same condiment, sacred story has told us that one only 
became a traitor. — Should we, who with warm hearts and glad faces, are 
now met together at this table, this altar of good will and patriotic feeling, 
ever meet again, no matter in what land, or under what auspices, adverse 
or prosperous, this high ceremonial of kindness and patriotism could not 
be forgotten ; and we should, in memory of this evening, and of these rites 
of hospitality, take each other by the hand with higher and holier arior of 
brotherhood. 

The hours of refection were, by the wise men of antiquity, devoted to 
both bodily and mental refreshment ; the table was spread not more for the 
purpose of food, than of conversation ; and the public places for those pur- 
poses were the great schools of mutual instruction for the commonwealth. 
Our republican instiiutions are, as we trust, improvements on the models 
of both ancient and modern governments; but our administration of them 
rnay not, at all times, e(]ual the wise and patriotic administrations of the 
ancients; and if they deemed it important, at these hours of refreshment, 
to discuss public affairs and the conduct of public men, it cannot be unwise, 
or impro()er in us, to have adopted, in some form or other, this classic cus- 
tom, established, as a part of tiieir free institutions, by the sages and states- 
men of antiquity. If you please, then, gentlemen, permit me, for some 
brief time, to fill up this pause of festivity ; and, in exchange for the flow of 
the goblet, to offer you that of t!ie soul. 

'] he fjreat interests of the nation, the government established by the peo- 
ple of these United States for the preservation and advancement of those in- 
terests, and the administration of that government, by the public agents, 
selected and appointed for that purpose, are all subjects of deep and vital 
roncernment to each one of us and of the whole nation. What ttie past 
■was, we all know : what the present is, let us inquire, that we may thereby 
endeavor to provide for the future. The Constitution of our country has 
recently, from ihe place where I now have the honor to stand, received 
such exposition and eulogium, and so perfect and finished, as neither to re- 
quire nor to admit addition or improvement. The boldest artist of Greece 
Dever attempted to give a new excellence to the Minerva of Phidias. Con- 
sidering the great prmciples of that constitution, as settled and established, 
"ive may secttrehj turn our attention to some of its great provisions, as they 
have been reduced to practice, under the several administrations of the 
general government ; and inquire how they are sustained by the present 
rulers of the land. 

When Gen. Jackson was placed in the Presidential chair of the United 
States, the patriots and statesmen of the country, who had been opposf 'i 



8 

to his election, did console themselves with the hope, that regard for his 
own fame might induce him to call to his cabinet the wisest and best men 
among those who had been (riendly to his advancement to that high station. 
If directed by the councils of such men, his administration might take a 
character not adverse to the great interests and institutions long fostered 
and established in the country. How sadly they were disappointed, is well 
known; nor has the disappointment of many of the most zealous and up- 
right of his friends been less grievous. His cabinet was so selected and 
arranged, that the whole power and influence of the President^ has been 
brought under the councils and into the control of the Secretary of State. 
This man has exerted his managing capacities in such intrigues, as to have 
either brought every other man in the cabinet into his schemes, or to have 
excluded him from the confidence of the President. The second officer of 
the government has, by the friends of the Secretary, as he admits, but by 
himself, as ail men believe, been driven into open hostility with the first; 
while Mr. Van Buren, securely sheltered behind the name of Gen. Jackson 
and the Presidential character, like little Teucer behind the shield of Ajax 
Telamon, discharges his arrows at the naked and magnanimous bosom of 
his great political adversary. Indeed, the President has little concern in the 
administration : so little, that upon the great question of re-election to that 
high office, which, when free from the control of advisement, he has always 
declined, bis own private secretary, without consulting him, has written a 
letter to a leading member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, assuring him 
that the President would be highly gratified if that body would nominate 
him for re-election. Who has such an interest in this re-election as Martin 
Van Buren? and what private Secretary of what other President of the 
United States, would, without consulting him, have dared to write such a 
letter? lam, in truth, detaining you without necessity; for '• you ail do 
know" this man; his wily genius, his crooked counsels, his Machiavelian 
principles. These principles, heretofore planted and forced into growth in 
the political hot-beds at Albany, have been, by him, transplanted into the 
open espo.sure at Washington, and are now flourishing in the invigorating 
sunshine of the Presidential palace. Is the nation likely to receive healing 
from their leaves ? Let us inquire. 

First of all, how has the Secretary mannged our foreign relations ; and to 
what good purpose, either of economy, interest, or national honour ? Neariy 
nil our foreign Ministers in Europe have been recalled ; but if they have 
been replaced by better, much better men, and our interests thereby advanc- 
ed to an amount,— equal to the enormous cost of these removals and ap- 
pointments, the people may have no cause of complaint. It is said that 
France has appointed Commissioners to ascertfii'i the amount of spoliations 
on American commerce and navigation, committed by her cruisers during 
the revolutionary government. This, so far as it indicates a spirit of remu- 
neration, is vveii ; bat it can lead to nothing which has not longbeen known 
as a maltp r of record, both to the government of France and in the Depart- 
ment of State at Washington. These spoliations were done by order o^ 
Napoleon, and by his corsairs, on the high seas, and in the sight of all na- 
tions. The ocean blazed with the conflagration of our ships. That mili- 
tary Despot commanded these atrocities to be perpetrated, that he might 
compel us to unite with him in his crusade against the nations of the earth. 
Ever since the final abdication of this man, the people of France have been 
desirous of doing us justice ; but they contend that they i^^ve an unadjust- 
«d claim against us, under the Louisiana treaty of cession. Under that 
treaty, a right of entry, into all the ports of that State, was foi ever secured 
to them, on the terms of the most favored nation. Thisright, as they hold, 
was by them purchased, and a valuable consideration paid for it, in the ces- 
sion of that territory ; and, accordingly, when that territory became r 
State in our Union, if other nations purchased a right of entry into those 
pt»rts by granting a rocipiocal right of entry into their ports to American 
ships, France was under no obligation to grant such reciprocity for such 
a right of entry ; because she had already purchased it by the cession, and 



9 

had it secured to her by treaty. Our government has always contended 
against this construction, and denied this right to France; and, in a corres- 
pondence between Mr. Adams, when Secretary of State, and the French 
IMinister, then near the United States, the French construction of that treaty 
was ably contested, and the American construction as ably supported. It 
still remains unsettled, and, until adjusted, or waved by France, all com- 
missioners, appointed by either or both governments, can make no final 
progress in settling the claims of American merchants on the French go- 
vernment. Whet time will ever come more propitious than that which has 
for the last six months been passing, for our government to institute an able 
and eflicient mission to meet plenipotentiaries on the part of France for 
the settlement of this great national question, and for the removal of this 
only obstacle between American merchants and their long-delayed rights 
of remuneration ? Never will the French people, hereafter, be more anx- 
ious to conciliate those of the United States ; and never will Lafayette, the 
brother in arms of Washington, the illustrious friend of the American peo- 
ple, have a higher or more controlling influence in the councils of France. 
Like all the surviving worthies of our revolution, he is standing on the 
verge of life ; he and they are not yet immortal, and they must soon pass 
from this world of dust and shadow^s, to that of realities and imperishable 
glories. Why has not this auspicious time been seized ? — Why has it been 
suffered to pass without exertion, and probably without attention, on the 
part of our government ? — No former administration ever had in hand such 
a golden opportunity. We have no intimation from the men in power that 
any etlbrt has been made, or intended, to improve it. 

Have our relations with England been made more prosperous by the ex- 
change of Ministry at the Court of that country ? It is said triumphantly 
that the West India trade has been recovered. Ever since the close of 
our revolutionary struggle, up to the close of the last administration, Great 
Britain has claimed and exercised the right of regulating all trade with her 
West India colonies, by the orders of the king in council. During all that 
time the United States, both under the confederation and under the present 
government, have demanded as a matter of right, due to national comity, that 
this trade, between these colonies and the U. States, should be regulated by 
treaty and permanently settled betw^een the two nations. Has this point 
been yielded by Great Britain ? Has a treaty been made ? No ; but the 
Secretary of State has for us yielded the right to demand it. The trade is 
regulated now just as Great Britain has always regulated it, by her own 
laws ; and we have agreed to receive as a boon what is in reality a favor 
granted to her. Before this concession, the British West India colonies con- 
sumed quite as great a quantity^of the products of our country as they can 
have done since. The commerce was as great, though not direct ; the navi- 
gation was exclusively ours ; and if the indirect transportation was more 
costly, it was because it gave more employment to our own tonnage, and, 
being paid by those colonies, was a real benefit to our navigation. Fo? 
much of the proceeds of our exports were received in specie, and employ- 
ed to purchase cargoes at New Orleans; and the trade was thus by its indi- 
rectness not made onerous to us as it was to them. 

What then have we gained by the restoration of this trade ? Our ves- 
sels can carry nothing to the West India Colonies under this restoration, 
which cannot be carried thither in British vessels ; but in the indirect trade 
much reached those colonies, transported, nearly to them, by our own 
vessels, which cannot be admitted into them now, even in British vessels. 
The restored commerce is, therefore, so much less than the commerce 
given up in exchange for it. How does it affect our navigation ? Com- 
mercial m-en have told me, that already one-third of the tiansportation of 
our own productions is done by British tonnage. This was to be expect- 
ed. For British vessels, freighted from Liverpool to New-York, being 
, -impelled to go to the West Indies for a freight home, w'ill take cargoes of 
\ ^rican produce on freight to those counties at a cheaper rate than our 
fGi 's can afford to do it. If this dues not secure the whole transporta- 



10 

fion to British tonnage, the other parts of the arrangement certainly will 
effect this. It was agreed (hat liie British government should, whenever 
they might choose to do so, lay an impost duty oh all products of our coun- 
try when imported directly from the United States into these West India 
colonies ; and, at the same time, exempt the same products from such im- 
post if injported from her colonies on this continent. So soon as this im 
post shall have heen laid on the products of the United States, they cannot 
reach the West India Colonies in American vessels ; because the duty will 
compel them to be transported thither from the colonies on the continent. 
We may chance to carry a part of them, in competition with the British,, 
to these colonies; but our vessels cannot carry freights, thence, to the 
West India Colonies. Transportation between colony and colony is a 
part of her coasting trade, which Great Britain will no sooner relinquish, 
than we shall relinquish to foreigners our coasting trade between one 
state and another. 

In this arrangement for this rcFtoratlon of the West India Xrade, the agree- 
ment on the part of Great Britain, not to impose any other or higher duty 
on our products, when imported into the West India Colonies, in Ameri- 
can, than if imported in British vessels, did not extend, as they understood 
it, to their Colonies on this continent. They will, accordingly, place an 
impost duty on all such produce imported into those colonies in our ves- 
sels ; and thereby transfer all our commerce with all these colonies, whe- 
ther island or continental, from our navigation, which had the whole trans- 
portation of it under the indirect trade, to British navigation, whieh will 
have the vvhole, under this triumphant restoration. This is exactly what the 
British politicians have claimed, as a matter of right, ever since the first rao- 
rnent of our independence ; and it is what all patriots of the United States^ 
since the revolution, have refused to yield, until Mr. Van Buren, in a man- 
ner " /Aewos/ /rawA; an<Z/We?irf(j/" to Great Britain, did, by the agency of 
Mr. Louis Mc Lean, request and receive the privilege of surrenderiyig xip this 
right of transporting our own products in our own vessels, to the British 
government, for the use and encouragement of British tonnage. It is, 
therefore, manifest, that although, when the W. India trade was lost, as it 
has been often alleged by the late administration, we had and enjoyed both 
the commerce and the navigation ; yet now, when it has, under the auspices 
of Mr. Van Buren, been restored, we may hold some part of the commerce* 
but we must lose the whole navigation. No matter if it destroy the mer- 
cantile rights of the people, it stibserved the purposes of the Secretary. — 
The report of this great restoration reached this country on the eve of im- 
portant elections ; and, that it might seasonably arrive at the most distant 
point of operation, was at the noon of Sunday, and the hour of intermitted 
devotion, officially announced from the cabinet at V^ashington. The long 
shadow of this glory of onr diplomacy reached Maine, and effected that 
object ; but Maryland was too near the scene of this plot to be deceived, 
and therefore she nobly performed her duty to the nation. 

We should have less cause of mortification had our right been surren- 
dered with a spirit less subservient to England, and in a manner not quite 
so prostrate. Money might have been sacrificed, and the thino; forgotten ; 
but that the upright republican spirit of America, which, like William Penn, 
has ever stood with covered head before the English throne, should, by 
such men, be taught to truckle and fawn at the foot of royalty, is not 
among the minor grievances of the times ; and cannot pass away " like the 
summer cloud without the special observance" of the American people. 
Nor is the surrender of our rights rendered more tolerable by another ele- 
ment united with the servile spirit wherewithal it was made. In all our 
most ardent contests for principles, or for power, heretofore had in the na- 
tion, a noble dignity in our foreign ministers of either side, has learned 
them to hold our party controversies, like those among brothers, sacred 
and as family secrets ; and they have scorned, by mingling them with out 
diplomacy, to betray and divulo;e them to the vulgar eye of foreign nations. 
What has the secretary of state been pleased to do? He has instructed 



■•:''»-nr'r *!*-#12ai.f-r»-j'w»».*-. JT* 



11 

our Miniver at the English Court fo claim the high consideration of that 
government to the present, by gossiping a full disclosure of its irreconcila- 
ble hostility to the past administration. How must the haughty states- 
man of England have regarded this rc/or/n in American diplomacy ; or that 
Secretary of State, under whose dignified administration it was made? 
Our only hope is from the healing power of time. The wound, which to- 
day all may see in the trunk of the oak, will by two summer's growth be- 
come cicatrized and be seen no more. 

Have our relations with Russia been conducted in any manner more 
profitable and dignified ? You have seen how the Hon. Mr. Mc Lean has 
restored the West India trade by his diplomacy at the Court of England ; 
but may God grant that the American people may never see how the Hon. 
Mr. Randolph sustained our national character at the Russian Court ! The 
debate in the house of Representatives of the United States, on the mis- 
sion of this gentleman, was printed, and may have come under your eye. 
If so, that and the pithy remarks just delivered by the Hon. Gentleman in 
Ihe chair, must have put you quite fully in possession of the character of 
that distinguished mission. If you please, gentlemen, I will just «tate two 
collateral facts, which improve the colour, but do not change the features, 
of their character. Although, at the time of that debate, it was unknown 
to me, and to those associated with me in the discussion, yet was it official- 
ly known at the Department of State, that Mr. Randolph had, when be left 
St. Petersburg, taken his passports with him, and thereby, according to all 
the forms of diplomacy, entirely relinquished his ministerial character at 
the Imperial Court of Russia. With a knowledge of this fact, what man 
on earth, other than Mr. Van Buron, could have placed in the Presidential 
Message to Congress, the ' Hope that this mntleman uovld by an improxe- 
ment of his health, again repair to St. Petersburgh and resume the discharge of 
his official duties?" The other fact of which I would remitjd you is, that 
before the President approved the Act appropriating ,^'18,000 for the benefit 
of Mr. Randolph, and in payment for his diplomatic services, the f'.ieiid of 
that gentleman, in Virginia, had, in the public papers, and by his direction, 
announced him as a candidate for election to tlie next Congress. " He 
should, (as it was stated,) be detained abroad until after the election.'' De- 
tained by what cause ? The election takes place usually in Ajiril ; but Mr. 
R's diplomatic year would not terminate till June. He must tarry otit of 
the country, until he bad earned, by a full year's exile, his full years salary. 
His quarterly allowance for returning would be earned by coming home; 
and this he directed his friends to promise that he would do, before the 
next session of Congress. How could the Secretary advise the President 
to approve that appropriation, when it was so manifest that this minister 
was prolonging his absence, not to settle national controversies, or to win 
diplomatic victories, bur, like a good general, to achieve a successful re- 
treat, and effectually secure his baggage and plunder ! 

Attempts were made during the last year, to extend our relations to ano- 
ther European Power. A treaty of some sort w as made with the Imperial 
Turk of Constantinople. For this purpose, commissoners were appointed, 
which, although the President might appoint in the recess, yet because this 
appointment was not ratified by the advice and consent of the Senate, in 
session for many months before the conchjsion of this commission, the whole 
proceeding was clearly extra official ; and was not only so considered by 
the two able and distinguished Senators from Virginia, but was by them pro- 
nounc*»d to be an invasion of the rights of the Senate, and a flagrant viola- 
tion of the Constitution. 

The ostensible object of this negociation was to open to American 
navigation and commerce the trade of the Black Sea. This the Rus- 
«ians contend that they have already effected for all nations, by the treaty 
>of Adrianople. They had, sword in hand, opened to themsel ves a passage 
through all the defences both of nature and art ; and descended and spread 
themselves out on that plain, where, in former times, the Greek artd the Hun 
contended for empire. Here other powers interposed, or the Turks hud 



12 

feeen driven once more "beyond the Bosphorus. It was believed, that if the 
Czar of Russia reached and ascended the throne of Constantinople, the 
balance of Europe might tremble, and the beam itself lose its level. The 
Emperor of Russia terminated the war by treaty with the Grand Seignior, 
securing, among other things, a free passage through the Bosphorus to all na- 
tions in amity with both the high contracting parties. Christian nations 
hold all to be in amity who are not in a state of declared hostility ; but the 
Turk regards all christian nations as enemies, which have not, by treaty 
with him, obtained the relations of amity. Our treaty with the sublime Porte 
was founded on our respectful submission to the Moslem construction of 
the treaty of Adrianople ; and intended to bring us withio the provisions of 
it. This treaty was in part ratified, and in part rejected, by the Senate ; and 
thereupon the Secretary of State sent a requisition to that House of Con- 
gress, requiring an appropriation for the purpose of a most splendid pleni- 
potentiary mission to the Turkish Court, accompanied by all the oriental 
train of barbaric pomp; and carrying in hand fifty thousand dollars as a pre- 
sent to the Grand Seignior, eittier to purchase our relations of amity with 
the Turk, or to pay for the fine Aral)iao stud presented by him to the great 
man of the new world, and which, as I learn, is at keeping in this city. It 
was thus managed, that this modern argonautic expedition was to be fitted 
out, not like that of the ancients, to bring home from the shores of the stormy 
Euxine, but carry out to those regions, the goldenfleece. For some small quan- 
tity of trade, more or less, the republicans of the United States, the disci- 
ples of the cross, must be made to bow to those of the Crescent ; and our 
" mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty," compelled to turn her pure and vestal 
eye on the gorgeous saloons and voluptuous harems of a military despotism. 
We were, in some degree, preserved from the dishonour of this new and 
splendid project of state patronage, by a distinguished Senator of Massa- 
chusetts, who succeeded in reducing the lofty dimensions of the plenipoten- 
tiary mission down to a Charge d'Atfaires. Could he have brought the 
thing to a mere consulate, or commercial agency, it might have satisfied all 
the requirements of trade, and ceased to be odious to our national feelings. 

If, under the advisement of the Secretary of State, we have lowered our 
heads to foreign nations abroad, who might call us to some account for a 
departure from etiquette, we have, under the same councils, carried our- 
selves highly and haughtily enough to those dependent " remnants of once 
mighty nations" at home, placed, by the fortune of war and the inexpli- 
cable revolutions of human events, in a condition o( pupilage and guardian^ 
ship to the American people. How have these, our wards and pupils, been 
treated? How have the hi/h and holy relations of guardians and instruc- 
tors to them, been kept and preserved by us? We stand pledged to the 
whole christian world, by the declarations of our ancestors, repeated by 
us, in every the most solemn form, to civilize and instruct the aborigines in 
the great principles of our benign religion. By the obligations of the most 
sacred treaties, and for a full and valuable consideration in broad lands 
ceded to the TJ. States, our government has, at various times, covenanted 
with these tribes and nations to pay them annuities ; to guarantee to them 
their respective governments, and laws, and territories; and to defendthem 
in the quiet possession and peaceable enjoyment of all these, their great 
original and jiatural rights. From the commencement of our peaceable 
relations with them u[) to the close of the last administration, these cove- 
nants had been fully and sacredly observed and kept by the government of 
the U. States. Mechanics and farmers have sojourned among them, to 
teach these people the great fundamental arts of civilized life. By holy 
men, who have taken up their abode among several of these nations, they 
have been taught letters and arts ; and, above all, learned the divine 
precepts of the christian religion. The annuities, due to each nation and 
tribe by treaty, have, with good faith, been paid into their public treasuries, 
to be disbursed according to their own laws and customs. So early as 1802, 
by a statute of the United States, and called ever since the Intercourse 
jLe^w, a line of demarcation was drawn between their lands and territorieg 



13 

BTid those -of the United, or the several States and territories- By this law 
all mankind were excluded from these lands, unless by consent of the 
owners, and a license for that purpose first obtained. How have these 
people profited by these benefits ? I will call your attention more particu- 
larly to the Ciierokees, because their nation has been most improved, and 
iheir present condition does most interest the sympathies of the world. 
These people have abandoned the chace for subsistence, and become cul- 
tivators of the soil. They raise flocks and herds ; ^row corn and cotton ; 
and have established household manufactories for most of their own cloth- 
ing. — Such other kindred arts are cultivated among them as are necessary 
for this state of improvement. Under the advisement and instruction of 
Mr. Jelferson they have succeeded in establishing a republican form o (go- 
vernment; and have enacted wise and wholesome laws. A bank and ft 
treasury manage their currency and finances; a press promulgates their 
constitution and laws. One native Cherokee has Invented an alphabet of 
their language ; and another, a scholar, a christian, edits a public paper, 
printed in our and their language and letter ; published for the information 
of their people, and received and read in most of the Stales in this Union. 
In half a century after letters were brought to this people by pious and 
learned missionaries, they have reduced their laws to writing in their own 
alphabet and language. — A like achievement cost the Greeks not less than 
600 years. The school-house and the meeting-house have been built by 
them in their villages, as our pious ancestors reared the like buildings ia 
ours. In the one their children are taught in our language and their lan- 
guage ; in the other, their whole people meet together, on our Sabbath, in 
the name of the Saviour of the world, to worship the God of the whole 
<earth. 

So were our trusts, as guardians to them, religiously observed and kept j 
and so have they profited and improved, as. pupils and wards to us, under 
our teachings and protection. O! how ttnlikc. (or our glory and ilieir pro^'^ 
jierily, \s the present to the past. The President of the United States, soon 
after his inauguration, bade the Cherokee Delegation, then in Washington, 
assure their people, /rom Jiim^ that he would protect them against the de- 
mands of Georgia and the intrusions of all persons. Mr. Van. Buren had 
not then entered the Department of State, or assisted t!ie President by his 
advice. The next winter thoy were told by the same high functionary, 
that the lands in their possession were, beyond question, their own; but 
that he could not inteii'ere with the laws of a sovereign State, or secure 
them against the jurisdiction of Georgia. That State had not then expressly 
Said claim to the lands of the Cherokees ; but their legislature had passed 
lawsabolishing their government, abrogating their laws, and subverting their 
national character. These laws went into operation in .Tune 1830. — The 
Cherokee lands are owned by the nation ; and each individual owns nothing 
but his improvements on the soil. — When the laws of Georgia had abolished 
tlie Cherokee nation, the lands, as their politicians reasoned on the case, 
were.^ left without an owner; and, as they say, lying wnthin the limits 
of that state, became, at once, as a thing derelict, the property of that re- 
public. Perhaps the gold discovered in the Cherokee mountains has 
dazzled the moral perceptions of these good men. Be that as it may, they 
last autumn seriously contended that the Cherokees had no right to their 
own lands; and have thereupon enacted laws, orderingtbem to be survey* 
ed and parcelled out for distribution, by lottery or otherwise, among a 
people who, if they have any title to them, have obtained it by their own 
legislation. When the Cherokee delegation arrived in Washington, the 
last winter, and applied to the President again for protection; against the 
outrages daily committed on them, they were told by kirn., that all had been 
done that could be done ; and they had no other course but to migrate be- 
yond the Mississippi. 

What can have changed the conduct of the President from a solemn 
assurance of protection, to a total desertion of all the rights of these unfor- 
tunate people 1 Who is his adviser, — the keeper of his conscience ? The 

B 



n 

Secretary of State. — The land^, laws, government, the whole nation of (he 
Cberokees, have l)eRn sold by this heartless Caljiiict Minisler to the in- 
fatuated politicians of Georgia. To favour and carry into full eflect this 
scheme a(:;ainst the Cherokee?, a most flagrant injustice has been practised 
against all other Indian nations and tribes to which our government owes 
annuities. To deprive the Ciierokees of the pecuniary power of contend- 
ing with Georgia, these annuities, amounting yearly to more than $245,000, 
have, by an order from the war office, been directed to be paid, not ta 
the nations and tribes as the several treaties covenant that they sliall be 
paid, but to the head men, warriors, and common Indians, in a ratable 
proportion. In some of the tribes there are more individuals than there are 
dollars to be paid ; and how can they receive the money from an agent 
who does not know one from another; who could not, therefore, safelv 
distribute the annuities without assembling theui all together; nor Iheri 
■without a scale, graduated with the respective proportions to be paid to 
each grade of character in the tribe.^ In truth, the project must result in a 
double fraud ; one on our own government, which puts the money into 
the hands of agents who can never produce any voucher that he has paid 
it over, and therefore will keep the most of it in their own coffers ; and the 
other, to the Indian tribes afid nations, which, by this project, can receive 
not a cent of their annuities for any purpose common to the whole people. 
Our conduct is without a parallel. What can be found in the history of our 
own, or any civilized country, so cruel in practice, so utterly without the, 
pale of any theory of moral principle? This is not a question of national 
interest, but of national morality and character. The adviser of these 
Ineasures brings a calunmy on our good faith in the great forum of the 
world; and we must, unless by a great national disavowal, stand condemn- 
ed before all mankind. 

Let us turn to a part of the ariininislration less odious, because its error? 
or frauds fall on ourselves alone, and do not affect tlie rights and interest 
of any other people. The great national establishmefd for the transmis- 
sion of intelligence is among the most important of onr country. It deep- 
ly concerns things the most dear and valuable to us. The mail moves not 
only much of the wealth and information of the people, but their political 
concernments are greatly in the power of those engaged in its movements. 
The late Post Master General administered that establishment with great 
ability, and with a success highly satisfactory to the nation. When called 
to the office by Mr. Monroe, as well as when continued in it by Mr. Adams, 
he had full permission to conduct it on his own proposed principle, '' to ap- 
point no deputy, clerks, or assistant, but for official merit ; and to dl-place 
no one but for official delinquency." Although General Jackson, when 
he first took the Presidential chair, gave him the same tolerant rule of ap- 
pointment and removal; yet, a? it was in a few days announced that the 
Post Office establishment would, by a rule of the administration, be ar- 
ranged into the cabinet, he found himself compelled to resign. He left the 
ofl6ce, rich in funds laid up from its own revenue ; well supplied with skil- 
ful and diligent clerks; and supported by two assistants, either of whom 
was fully competent to conduct the whole establishment. 

How has it been conducted by his successor ? No branch of the admi- 
nistration disclosed a more rancorous political intolerance. Four or five 
hundred removals and appointtnents have been made, comprehending as- 
sistants, clerks, and deputies ; and when it has been proposed, in the Senate 
of the United States, to inquire into the causes of these changes, it has not 
been shown by the friends of the administration that they were made for 
official delinquency. The establishment has been arranged into the cabi- 
net; and the same regency principle, which has directed our relations with 
foreign nations and with the Indian tribes, has controlled this. 

Under the principles of present economy, the funds of the establishment 
have been exhausted without any new benefit to the people. The whole 
business of removal and appointment was conducted by Mr. M'Lean, as- 
istedby two clerks, at the annual cost of $1400. This business is nov<r 



15 

the tnost In)portaiit Ijianch of the rstablislunent : it is arranged into the 
Bureau of Ajipointment, wltli a special ngfint of tlic Secretary at the head, 
imd with such a train of preparation in clerks and contingencies that the 
whole costs the country $8,500 annually. Other parts of this service are 
equally prodigal and expensive. Clerks and extra calls for labour and sa- 
laries are nearly doubled under this new arrangement. It was last year 
ostentatiously published to the nation, that the contracts for transporting 
the ri ail had been made at a price much below the former consideratiort 
given for that work ; but recently the discovery has been made that much, 
more than the amount saved by the written contracts, had been expended 
in extra allowances to those liberal contractors who were instructed to un- 
derbid their competitors, with an assurance of remuneration for this efhcient 
aid given to the great political projects of the establishment. These remu- 
nerations have, in some instances, exceeded th(! amount agreed to be paid 
under the contract. Tlie mail from W'asliington to Baltimore is transport- 
ed, by contract, for $1800; but the extra allowances amount to $3200. 

Tlie conductor of the post-ollico establishment was so fully avvare'of the 
effects of a disclosure of this profligate fraud upon the revenue of the peo- 
})le, that, when called upon, early in thetaonth of May, 1830, to lay astate- 
ment of the contracts and allowances before the Senate, he delayed that 
duty until near the close of last February. When at last sent in, it was, 
Rs of course, refer.'-ed to the committee on post-offices and post roads ; kept 
by that committee until within three or four days of the adjournment, and 
then laid on the table with a motion that ifbe printed ; which was, of course, 
accordingly ordered. Before the delivery of this documentto the printer, the 
Hon. Mr. Clayton took it up for a short examinatioii. He discovered that 
all the allowances, about $50,000, were set down as having been made by 
Mr. Bradley, the assistant post-master-general under Mr. M'Lean, who had 
;nanaged the establishment for a few days, after it was left by that gentle- 
inan, before the arrival of Mr. Barry. — He was^ beyond measure, astonish- 
ed ; for Mr. Bradley had stated, on examination under oath, I believe, that 
he had made no such allowance. Mr. Clayton called on him for explana- 
tion. Hp. reneafed his former .statenieni, and requested that Mr. Grundy 
and Mr. Holmes would go to the post office and examine the books. IJere 
the unprofitable works of darkness were brought to light. The letters con- 
taining the statements of these allowances; the dates when they were 
inade; the erasure of the name of Wm. T. Barry, and the insertion of the 
name of Abraham Bradley ; the confessions of the clerks who had been 
taught and directed to conjmit this double forgery ; all conspired to make 
such an impression of this fraudulent and profligate transaction on the 
mind of every senator, that, upon the request of Mr. Bradley, that distin- 
guished body, without a disseisting voice, rescinded the order to print this 
report ; and thereby told the nation, that, in their opinion, it was fabricated 
and false. Time would not admit further investigation in the Senate, nor 
was it admitted in the House ; for a friend of the secretary, who had giveu 
notice that he should there call up the Post Office Bill, did, when this disco- 
very was made, prudently emit to do so. 

^ This establishment is utterly insolvent. It is the instrument of proscrip- 
tion. Its concerns Lave been, as we have seen, most fraudulently conduct- 
ed ; and, under the advisement of the Cabinet, it is modeled into a system 
of political espionage. Every Deputy Post Master is directed to insert in 
his return the title of every newspaper received at his office for distribution* 
By this return, Mr. Robbie (not the Post Master General, for he is laid up 
out ot the combat) can place under the eye of Mr. Van Buren the name, 
and he knows the politicaJ character, of every newspaper read in eveiy 
city, town, village, and neighbourhood in the whole country. Will an in- 
pendent and free people always endure such lookers into their own affairs? 
Buch spies upon their fireside amusements ? Let them once know their in- 
juries, and they perfectly understand and will diligently apply the consti- 
tutional remedy, 

'I he Pj-esideut has, ^nder the same advisement, placed a deep censure oa 



16 

V 

the Bank and currenc}' of the United States. This was advised by Mr. Van 
Buren, doubtless to give to the Banks of this city the expectation, on the 
overthrow of that of the Unitsd States, of receiving and disbursing the na- 
tional funds ; and therel)y to reconcile thenrj to the system of guarantee 
which he had placed upon their transactions. This might have produced 
some effect had the subtle poison been vended without the antidote. The 
splendid scheme of a treasury Bank at Washington, so dazzled his imagina- 
tion, that he could not exclude every glimpse of it from the Message ; and 
thus, what he might have gained by his proposed destruction of the Bank of 
the United States was placed beyond his I'each hy a disclosure odhepoli- 
deal mystery which was to be raised up in its place. 

The constitutionality of the United States Bank is questioned by the Se- 
cretary in the Message; and he further alleged, that this Bank has failed to 
establish a sound and uniform currency throughout the country. The con- 
stitutional question has been settled by the Supreme Court. What does 
Mr. Van Buren intend by a sound currency T He should mean, and there- 
fore, for once, I will believe he did mean, a currency equal in value to the 
silver and gold coin of the United States. Every bank bill of any amount, 
which may, on demand, at the place where it is payable, be converted by 
exchange into gold or silver coin of a like amount, must be equal in value 
to such amount of coin. May not this be done with every bill of the United 
States Bank ? No man will deny the fact. If, then, such coin be a sound 
currency, such bank bills must be ecpially a sound currency. This allega- 
tion against the Bank is, therefore, unfounded ; and must have been made 
either without a knowledge of the facts, or with no intention to state thena 
correctly. Is not this Bank currency quite as uniform as a gold and silver 
currency? Will not a bank bill, at New-Orleans, and payable in that city, 
exchange for as much gold and silver coin as a bank bill of equal amount, 
payable in New-York, can be exchanged for in this city ? Will not a one 
hundred dollar bill, at New-Orleans, if payable there, exchange for one hun- 
dred silver dollars or for ten eagles ; and will a one hundred dollar bill, at 
New-York, if payable there, exchange for any greater or any less number 
of dollars or eagles? What then does the great financier of the state die- 
partmeat intend by a want of uniformity in this United States Bank cur- 
rency? 

Perhaps he objects, because the Bank does not promise to pa3% and actu- 
ally pay its bills of one branch at any or all other branches. Should it do* 
this, the same objection miglit be made, unless it also promised to pay, and 
actually did pay them, at any or all other places. He who could not get 
one thousand silver dollars for a bill of that amount of the New-York Branch, 
if he called for it at the Branch in Boston, would have no more reason to 
complain of the refusal than if at Worcester, or Pautucket, he might want 
the like accommodation and not be able to obtain it. The objection raises 
a question of exchange, and not of currency; and lies with more weighi 
against coin than against the United States Bank bills. Indeed, such bills 
are' almost as much more near to uniformity than coin, as they are more 
easily transmitted from place to place than a lilce amount in gold and sil- 
ver could be transported. Imagine, for a moment, that our whole currency 
was gold and silver coin : if any man at Providence desired to invest 
$10,000 at New-Orleans, must he not, unless he could purchase a bill of 
exchange, payable in that city, transmit, at whatever cost of risk and labor, 
the whole amount of coin to that place ? In fact, in all countries destitute 
of theaccommodation of bills of exchange, or a bank with collateral branch- 
es, gold and silver is worth just as much less, in the place where it is not 
wanted, than it is in the place where it is wanted, as it will cost to transport 
it from the one to the other. Any amount of gold and silver is, in truth, 
like every other commodity, of the same uniform value only at the same 
time and at the same place. The nature of things cannot be reversed, and 
we must govern our institutions according to their laws. Until we can 
abolish time and space, we cannot abrogate or exchange that subtle mystery 
of trade which seems to be too evanescent for the matler-of-fact ialeliect 



17 

of the President ; and yet too well known and established to be improved in 
its condition by the Achitophe! of State. 

The Bank of the United States has, by the skill and diligence of its Pre- 
sident and directors, done more in this behalf than could have been effect, 
ed by any other and different establishment. In 1828, that bank and its 
various branches transmitted, in bills of exchange, bank and treasury drafts, 
nearly $64,000,000. Tiiis was done at a cost to its customers and to the 
nation very little exceeding $250,000. 

When we look back to the chaos of currency, over the whole country 
except New England, during the war, and until this bank was established, 
all mercantile men must with indignation regard the attempt made to over- 
throw this institution. It cannot suspend specie payments without paying 
twelve per cent, on all bills not so paid on demand. No loan by this bank 
to a State can exceed fitly thousand, nor any one to the United States go 
over five hundred thousand, dollars, unless by law admitted to make theni 
larger. If, at any time hereafter, the pressure of war might call for heavier 
loans under such laws, and this bank, like the Bank of England during the 
great struggle of that country with nearly all Europe, should be pressed, by 
demands, until authorised by Congress to suspend specie payments, still 
Bills of this Bank would be as those of the Bank of England were, a uniform 
though depreciated currency. The revenue of the tjnited States paid ia 
those WJIs would be uniformly paid in all parts of the country ; nor could 
the inequality, not to say injustice, of former times be renewed, when such, 
payments were made in a currency at a par with specie, in New England, 
and in one at a discount of twenty-five per cent, at Washington. 

This political war of the State Department against this Bank has not beea 
declared, because it does not fully meet the purposes of its establishment ; 
but because this cannot be, and different institutions might be made subser- 
vient to the political purposes of the secretary. He would displace this and 
establish another at Washington. It must be there, and without branches, 
or the constitutional objection could not be avoided. It is to be establish- 
ed, not on capital, but on the reientw and credil of the government. Does 
not the government disburse all the annual revenue for the annual expendi- 
ture!* They have done so, and more also, during the last two years ; they 
have drawn upwards of two millions of dollars from the amount of savings 
laid up by the economy of the last administration. Can those, who have 
no revenue beyond their expenditure, and not quite enough for that pur- 
pose, have suthcient credit on which to establish a Bank ? A Bank cannot 
operate any more than a ship, or a manufactory, or a farm, without capital. 
With capital a prudent man may obtain some extension of that capital by 
credit; but none but adventurers ever'undertake to establish any branch of 
business without capita! and upon mere credit. 

If this treasury bank be a bank without capital, it will n(jt be likely to be 
sustained by deposits. It is to be an institution for transmitting Uie funds 
of government, to have a few officers who may " sell bills of exchange to 
private individuals at a moderate premium.'''' Does not this disclose the great 
secret of the establishment ? Who will be these private individuals to be 
accommodated at S7naU premiums ? Doubtless the same description of men, 
some of whom have been accommodated with small offices. That species 
of patronage has been all worked up. All these offices are discounted, 
God only knows at what premium ; and unless some office can be estab- 
lished to discount money or bills of exchange, the great trading mystery 
of political buying and selling must be at a stand. Why, gentlemen, let 
this bank but once be opened, and customers, wlio have left every other 
department of the government without accommodation, will again be seen 
in crowds pressing towards Washington. Place this great carcass of pecu- 
niary patronage out in the sunshine, and from all the different regions of 
our country, birds of eveiy wing and every beak will snuff the prey ; and 
rush on to the " mad carnaval," filling and darkening the air with their 
ctaraour and their flight. 

Piot* only the revenue, but the credit of the nation is to be placed in the 

b2 

y 



lo 

4iands of " a few officers ;*' and these men, directed by the same spirit 
which has disturbed all the offices in the gift of government, will soon pur- 
chase for their employer all that portion of our liberties, and all that mass 
of power, which either revenue or credit can purchase. The people would, 
in a few years, find themselves blessed with an empty treasury, anew debt, 
■and be in the control of a man governed by no more principle than he has 
ever displayed patriotism. 

Man can endure many things from rulers endowed with great purposes 
•and lofty conceptions of national advancement. Napoleon was less odious 
to the French people, though no less a tyrant, than the subtle, crafty, low- 
minded Eleventh Louis. The imperial Chief, even* in the midst of his des- 
potism, planned and executed many great and enduring works of improve- 
ment for the common benefit of all France. The man under whose ad- 
vice our government is now administered, has a mind for intrigue, and is 
proud of this character ; but can have no conception of the great projecta 
of great minds for national benefit. He has, accordingly, advised the Pre- 
sident to reject our whole system of internal improvement, and place his Veto 
on every legislativ^e provision proposed to him for that purpose. 

No country on earth is so capable as ours of an extended internal im- 
provement ; nor could any thing more increase our commerce with foreign 
nations than cheapening transportation and encouraging commerce among 
the several States. — The constitution has conferred on Congress the same 
power to regulate the one as the other. More than 100,000 miles of domestic 
.navigation, by rivers and lakes, may be united by a few improvements in 
these, and by uniting them by a less extent of canals than is completed, orin 
progress towards completion. These, when finished, would bring 4,000,000 
of square miles of our territory, in the interior, to within ten miles of west- 
ern tranporlation. The west and the east, the north and the south, would 
he united ; and such a tide of commercial intercourse be constantly flowing 
through every region of it, that the demagogues of disunion must becom© 
discouraged by the very aspect of its movements, and give up their contest 
against patriotism. — Foreign commerce has contributed largely, by impost 
on its commodities, (o discharge the great national debt contracted by the 
«ipenditure of two wars. The people have patriotically sustained the sys- 
4«ra of revenue ; and the whole nation has a right to expect the surplus of 
that revenue, after discharging that debt, will be appropriated to the great 
purposes of improvirtg the internal commerce and navigation of the coun- 
try. Tliey have a right to expect that the system will not be abandoned 
when the purposes of war are subserved ; and that, if sustained at its present 
rate of productiveness, and faithfully applied, the country will, in twenty 
years, exhibit a condition of internal transportation and commerce, of high- 
ways, rail-roads, canals, rivers, and lakes, without a parallel on this globe. 

What could have induced the Secretary to advise the President, against 
his former opinions and his senatorial course not seven years before, to this 
inconsistent scheme of placing a veto against this great system ? Js the fame 
of Clinton hostile to his repose ; and does he regard each new canal as a 
new monument to the great founder of that system in our country? He may 
be at peace. Van Buren's and Clinton's fame belong to different hemis- 
pheres. The exhalation raised from the bog, by the influence of the sun, 
*iever brightens into visibility until that luminary is below the horizon, and 
the world is in darkness. 

The Secretary, by his advice to the President, has in the last message in- 
troduced a principle into our system for the encouragement and protection 
of onr national labour and capital, intended, ^doubtless, to be subversive of 
the whole. No one thing, as he says, should receive encouragement or pro- 
tection until it be entitled to receive it alone, and if no other article were so 
entitled. Why, gentlemen, if men lived individually and alone, each man 
must provide for himself; but when they are in communities, the body poli- 
tic must chepish each and all its members. What wise man would neglect 
his feet or his hands, his head or his heart, unless each one of them might be 



19 

entitled to the same attention if separated entirely from the other parts of 
his body ? 

Our system of encouragement originated in our system of revenue. It 
began by an impost at about seven per cent, on imported commodities. It 
was raised from time to time, as the wants of the country required, until, 
during the last war, duties were doubled. When the war was closed, these 
duties were reduced ; but because great interests required it, these duties 
were not reduced to their former level ; and, in some instances, the princi- 
pie of protection was introduced into the revenue system. Such interests 
nave multiplied, and the protecting principle has been extended. Under 
this revenue system, thus modified, immense interests have been fostered 
and have grown up in every part of our country. 

A great problem is before the nation. Can we, when the national debt 
is paid, reduce our revenue system down to seven per cent., and thereby 
leave all these immense interests at the mercy of European competition; 
and to be swept away in two or three years by the overwhelming capital of 
France and England ? The sugar culture of Louis ana now employs about 
$45,000,000 ; produces annually about 100,000,000 pounds of sugar. Will 
you reduce the duty on sugar from three cents the pound to seven per 
cent, on the value ? Do^it ; every planter is ruined, and the whole State 
made bankrupt. It is admitted by intelligent men in the southern States that 
such a measure would reduce the productive value of all property south of the 
Potomac at least twenty-live per cent. What would be the fate of cotton, 
rice, and tobacco ? if a reduction of duty to seven per cent, did not directly 
injure these great interests, the converting at once all the surgar-raising laud 
and labour to the growing of the other three great staples of southern agri- 
culture, must of necessity so crowd the markets of the world with those 
products as to reduce them at least one-fourth part in their market value. 
Destroy the sugar trade by this modification of the revenue system, and 
the wreck of that overthrow would be like one burning ship driven by 
wind and currents on a whole anchored fleet. Would not this endanger 
their safety if not effect their destruction? 

Under the same system of revenue great interests have grown up in the 
middle and northern States ; in wool, in cotton and woollen cloths, in iron,, 
in hardware, and in a great number of mechanical productions. Reduce 
impost to seven percent, and is there not enough surplus production in Eu- 
rope, which must be sold at some market and at any price, to overwhelm 
nil these various descriptions of trade, and bring all these interests to a level 
with those of the South ? Could the laborer, the mechanic, the farmer, 
the maniifacturer, the merchant, or cither of them, escape from his full share 
of this ruin ? Ships would remain, and mariners ; and importation might 
he continued and pressed upon our markets; but let men remember, that 
the more any one can produce himself, the more can he, and will he pur- 
chase and consume of the prodijctions of some others, if they will receive 
his productions in exchange. The working vien of this nation cannot, icill 
not, support, or even endure, a syslem of political policy which excludes thepro' 
ducts of their oicn labor from the tnarkeAs of their oion country. A great ora- 
tor and statesman of antiquity has said, "It belongs to our humanity not to 
£ermit the interests of each other to suffer ; and it concerns our wisdom to 
now that the great interests of the many cannot be ruined, and the repub- 
lic remain in safetv." 

No very good reason can be given for clianging a system, sustained and 
Improved under every former administration since the founding of the go- 
vernment. Have'we not prospered under it ? Our production is constantly 
increasing: for it re(piires a constantly increasing tonnage to transport all 
the varieties of it to market. In 1815 we had about 1,100,000 tons in the 
foreign and domestic trade. At the close of 1828 this tonnage had aug- 
mented to a fraction less than 1,800,000 tons. A great iinprovenient, favora- 
ble to the transporting capacity, has been made in our vessels since the last 
war, both in their size and structure. The parcels of our bulky exports are 
more closely packed ; better stowage is made iu our ships ; and they are 



20 

m nhVisRted as to make more passages in a given time now than they 
made fifteen years ago. Nautical men and merchants have assured me, 
that all these circumstances do add to the efficiency of our nominal ton- 
nage at least twenty per cent, over and above what the like amount of no- 
minal tonnage could transport in a given time in 1815. This will raise our 
tonnage, in eftect. up to nearly 2,164,000 tons, and to almost double the 
fimount of it at the close of last war. Our vessels are as constantly em- 

filoyed now as they were then ; and consequently, we transport, and there- 
ore produce, nearly twice as much annually as we did in 1815. 

There was a time when we not only paid for our imports all for which 
we could sell our exports, but we often owed a balance, in money, over and 
above that amount. At this time our import of consumable commodities, 
though not decreased in quantity or cost, has been fully paid for by a part 
only of our exports ; and for the balance, gold and silver, in coin or bullion, 
have been imported. This was nsverthe fact before. We are in the pros- 
perous condition of the farmer, wdio, when he has sold his crops at market, 
and purchased all his supplies for the year, finds a fair balance in cash in 
his pocket to carry home. The quantity of gold and silver in the country, 
from this cause, is much greater than at any former periiid of our history. 
The whole amount is variously estimated ; by some at thirty, some at 
thirty-five, and by some as high as at forty millions. Are not these 
things, this increased production and this money balance, strong marks of 
our progress in wealth, and of the soundness of our system of policy here- 
tofore established? It is the elFact of manufacturing production, in aid of 
bgricultural ; and both uniting to furnish mercantile employment. The 
course of the English people has been the same. In 1710 they exported 
Bbout six milliotis sterling to all the world. — In 1780,aftera period of 70 
years, they had double the amount, and exported about twelve millions ; 
Out manutacturiug by machinery was invented in England about that time; 
end this has so rapidly increased her production, that in 1824 she exported 
nearly sixty-four millions sterling. — Great Britain has prospered under her 
gystem of encouragement and protection ; and no"ne of the theories of her 
u-ise men could induce her to relax it, iu effect, to the amount of one pen- 
ny on any of her own productions. Why should our ivise man induce us tO 
abandon our system, and thereby sacrifice our prosperity ? 

Theories of free trade fill \hc books of sonie men, but hitherto they have 
governed the practice of no community; nor been recommetided by any 
statesman of the old world for the use of his own country. They seem to 
belong to some supposed possible state of society, not to any practicable con- 
dition of loorking nations. Indeed, so long as equality among different 
communities is desirable, and they all differ so much in lands, population^ 
capital, skill, and advancement in the arts of production, nothing but laws^ 
wisely adjusted to their several conditions, can in these respects give them 
that ecjuality. We have given the world, and gone before all nations in 
givitig it, the only system of free trade which will probably ever be estab- 
lished. Our productions are sent out to all markets, and they go to the 
consumption of all nations, without any, the least, export duty, for the be- 
nefit of our own revenue. 

The adversaries of the Union and of our national advancement have 
instituted a kind of political knighthood, and associated themselves as 
champions of state rights. The Secretary is labouring to place himself at 
the head of this order ; and, as he has said, to restore the *' lost rights of 
the States. ";«Whai, I piay, are these /os« rights of this fair and lovely sistei'^ 
hood, in search and for the restoration of which, this man of many labours 
and many wiles has been so valiantly errant from north to south ? State 
rights! what are they, and how have or can they be invaded by the parental 
Ijovernment instituted by the people of the United States ? By the Consti- 
tution each State holds a a;uarantee from the United States, for secm-ing to 
her a republican form of government. Is this among the wrongs of any- 
State ; or is it one of the private griefs of individual ambition ? The two 
Houses selected by the people of the United States, and in Congress air* 



21 

iernMed, have the power to declare war, to raise and support armies and 
navies, to make treaties, to estaMish post-otfices and post-roads, to lay and 
collect imposts, to make and to fix the value of coins, to regulate commerce, 
foreign and domestic, to make all laws necessary for these purposes, and to 
do all these for the general welfare. 

No one of the States has the power to do these things, or either of them. 
Each State has the power to enact, adjudicate, and carry into execution, all 
laws necessary for the preservation of the life, property , and liberty of all 
persons within its own territory ; but the United States has no power to do 
these things, or any one of them. What state has lost one of these rights > 
or when has the United States arrogated the power to control or impair 
any, the least of them, in one of its parts ? The powers of the sun in the 
solar system are not more distinct from those of (he earth or any' other 
planet, than are those of the United States and of the several States, each 
progressing in its own sphere, cherished and encouraged by the general go- 
vernment. The warfare of these champions is not to recover rights of 
which the States have been despoiled, but to plunder from the government 
of the United States those powers which the people, for their own general 
welfare, have, by the constitution, intrusted to its management. 

The present administration, sworn to support this constitution, and, there- 
fore, to execute the laws, does not seem disposed to extend the construction 
of either so as to bring them into conflict with any of the laws of some of 
the States. Among the grievances of the times this is not the least conside- 
rable. If the powers of the United States are ever destroyed, if the Union is 
ever dissolved, these disastrous events v^ill b» produced by an administra- 
tion, which, under the advisement of such a Secretary, shall refuse to ex- 
ecute the laws. The times are indeed ominous. The direction, and im- 
pulse, given by the policy of other administrations to our national affairs, 
has hitherto kept them in a condition of some prosperity. We have not 
been carried on in our progress by the counsels, but in despite of the mea- 
sures, of our present rulers. It is probable we can float, and make some 
progress for two years moi=e, if iliey do not scuttle the £hlp.-;-We must maa- 
fully look at the dangers, and wait for our sure, our constitutional, relief. If 
the heavens be portentous, and the whole hemisphere dark with clouds ; 
the wind is setting into the right quarter ; the wreck is swiftly driven before 
it; clear sky will soon be seen above the mountains, and the bright mn \\\ 
the West give us a glorious safety. 

Jn the hope of this, gentlemen, I will close my remarks, and relieve your 
kindness from further attention, by giving you, 

5. The City of Mew ForA:.— Rich, populous and hospitable ; the London of the Ne\» 
World;— what may be her opulence, what her population, when her commerce and 
its kindred labours, encouraged and pro ected, like those of Loudon, shall annually 
renp two harvests, one from the ocean and one from the land ! 

The orator was often interrupted by the most enthusiastic cheers ; and 
when he sat down they %vere continued for a long time. 

The next of the set toasts, was the following: — 

6. The Supreme Court of the United States.— Created by the master spirits who 
achieved our national iiidepedence, sustained by Washington and his associates : the 
faithful expositor of consiiiuiional principles, and the last hope of a free people. 

7. The Father of his Country.— The lustre of his name brightens by modern con>- 
parisons. There has been but OJVE-WASHINGTON. 

8. 2'he twenty four United Sta/es.— Tenants in common, created by the ConstslU- 
tion ; may blind and infatuated selfishness never lead to a partition. 

9. The American JVavy.—h has given safety to, and shed glory upon, our country ; 
the gratitude of the people will sustain its distinguished officers against the persecu- 
tions of power. T J- -J 1 • J * .k 

10. The Mechanics and ?ror/:mg-mcn o/ ot/rcownfry.— IndividuaUndustry, t&a 

source of all national and individual wealth. . 

Col. Knapp being here called on to favour the company with a special 

toast, rose and addressed the chair nearly as follows :— 



09 

Mr. Pres'iden(— permit rae to make a few remarks prefatory to {he toast 
1 intend to offer you — 

It is well known lo all of us, that the several States of thisfrreat Republic 
were settled and grew up under peculiar circuinst.'inces, differing in cha- 
racter from each other, hut whicli are all worth rememboring in our social 
and happy hours ; and particularly when one part of the community is of- 
fering the rites of hospitality to the representatives of another. The great 
Stale of New-Yf>rk has, within afew days, been eulojjizedby one ic/tois the 
Jirst at the bar, first in the halls of Icgislat'on^ and first in the <rood opinions of 
the dixctiininatirn;; and the wise. Almost every State, in its turn, has had of 
late its taljle historian ; allow me then, sir, to make a few bri;>f, very hriel", 
observations on the small State — small, 1 meat* only in respect to territory 
•^—in nothing else, sir — which is represented by our distinguished guest. 
Khode Island, sir, has her distinct and proud history, — with strikijig land- 
marks all along the current of time since she began her existence. — Rhode 
Island was the birth-place of religious toleration in the western world — 
that glorious toleration which now pervades this country, and which alone 
would give it a superiority overall other countries. There, too, was held 
the first discussion upon the great doctrines of independence among us. In 
1636, that exiled philantliropist, Roger Williams, </urc took up his abode, 
was there met by the sons of the forest as a brother, who joined him in pro- 
claiming the freedom of religious opinion : a freedom which has there, ever 
since, been supported. In eleven years from this time four towns had 
grown up in this colony; the inhabitants had assembled, made themselves 
a form of- government and a code of laws: each man had a voice and a 
vote in this primitive work.— As they were surrounded by powerful tribes 
of Indians, their friends, but who might, by some unforseen event, soon be- 
come foes, they thought it prudent to ask for admi.'ision into the New En- 
gland union, then recently formed for self-defence. This they found could 
not be done except on the condition of acknowledging themselves within 
the jurisdiction of Plymouth — but the little handful of freemen treated the 
proposition to come under that colojiy with indignation, prefening inde,* 

T'^?/^.'":.':*', ^'^h *'"'^17 &t?.Z'^'\ tc .sn::!: a utiioh with every security. The 
brave are often prosperous ; the Rhode Island colony nourished and grew 
aj)ace. 

In 1G53 the charter of Rhode Island was suspended by an order from the 
mother country; but they did not mind that, but went on as before. Oa 
the restoration of the profligate and heartless Charles 2d. a new constitu- 
tion was Imposed upon her; but they acted, as it were, by a common con- 
sent, as nearly upon the plan of the old one as possible. — Charters and Con- 
stitutions are only paper and [larchment : it is the s[)*ril of the people that 
forms a government — and that alone can preserve it. 

At the glorious revolution of IfiSS, Rhode Island resumed her old Char- 
ier in word. It was theirs, a.'id they liked it; no matter what others 
thongbt of it. 

The people of Rhode island were always enterprising and determined j 
for, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, when tlie buccaniers were 
swarming on our coast, she did not think the mother country acted with aa 
juuch promptness and energy in exterminating them as she ought to have 
done ; and these Rhode Islanders sent an armed shi[i, scattered and destroy", 
ed many of them, bringing home the most des{>erale for execution. Twen- 
ty-five were hanged in a day. They had none of those sickly notions of 
humanity which saves a murderer in order that he may commit other- 
enormities. 

In 1745 Rhode Island sent one of her armed ships to assist Massachu- 
setts in taking Louisburg. At this period, she was the fourth commercial 
colony in the country. She was also among the foremost in the revolu- 
tionary contest. J'or, nearly three years before the drama was opened in 
blood at Lexington, the people of Rhode Island had burnt the Gaspee, aa 
armed ship befonging to the British Government, which wa,s stationed to, 
watch and annoy their coranierye» 



23 

In 1775 she had a respectable little navy ; and this was sometime befofe 
the Continental Congress had thought of a naval force ; and before the 
declaration of independence she had declared that all ties between her and 
the mother country were dissolved. 

During the war of independence, Rhode Island was distressed by British 
troops, and her blood was shed profusely when a battle was fought any 
where f6r the great cause. She had the honour of producing the secontj 
in command in the American army. Greene, the patriot warrior, was a 
son of Rhode Island: he was a mechanic, and forged his own sword by 
his own hand. — " It tvas of the iccbrook temper.^' 

" A better never did itself sustain 
Upon a soldier's thigh." 

ft turned not back until the war was ended and our liberty won. 

The commercial enterprize of Rhode Island, when the time arrived lo 
favor commerce, was second to none. She enlarged her charts of the 
commercial world, pushed her voyages to India, and doubled the Horn to 
the Pacific, and explored the North Western Coast ; enriched by her enter- 
prize, slie had the means to cherish manufactures when the changes of the 
times made it expedient for us to bring some of our workshops from Eng- 
land and other countries to our own soil — She has kept a happy equili- 
brium between the -two great secondary sources of national wealth, com- 
merce and manufactures, never losing sight of the primary one, agricul- 
ture. — In a word, Rhode Island is the land of civil and religious freedom, 
of industry, enterprise, and success. She has produced patriots, warriors, 
statesmen, scholars, painters, poets, navigators, merchants, aye, and beau- 
ties too, who reward the brave and cherish the free. She has taken care 
also to select men for our national council in whom she can confide ; no 
snow-broth, shilly-sliaily politician who, encased in selfishness, considers 
cunning as wisdom and intri,'?ue as political service. Honored in all, but 
in none is she more distinguished than in the fame of your guest, whose 
eloquence has just warmed your hearts to the highest glow of political vir- 
tue, and whose tearless spirit <:arries courage into fainting politicians; an 
eloquence which forms an era in Congressional debates ; an eloquence 
thatjias at once the splendid diction, the finely poised sentences, and the 
harmonious and polished whole of Isocrates, — " the old man doqvent^' — unit- 
ed to the point and pungency of JUNIUS. 

Tistam Burgos has a tongue that cannot be silent when the rights of hig 
countrymen are invaded — a countenance that never fell at the demands or 
denunciations of assumption and impudence — and a heart that never quail- 
ed at " the insolence of office." Cherish such men, gentlemen, wherever 
they are found; whether it be in the great State of New-York, or from 
smaller sisters of the Union, A great mind is not the property of a party, 
or of a single State ; he belongs to a nation, to mankind. As talents and 
virtues of every kind are sustained by public opinion, so will they en- 
crease. Allow me, gentlemen, in conclusion, to propose — 

Rhode Inland, — A small jewel — but of great piice. 

The orator was often interrupted by animated manifestations of applause, 
and resumed his seat amid much cheering. 

11. At/wcdliow. —May it become universal, bestowing its blessings on the hum- 
blest ciiizen and the Chief Magistrate. 

12. The late Secretary of State andhis successor ! 

*' Look here upon this picture — and on this : 
See what a grace was seated on this brow : 

Look you now, what follows : 
A mildeio'd ear blasting his wholesome brother. ^^ 

[It is much to be regretted that Mr. Van Buren could not have been with- 
in bearing of the acclamations with which this toast was received. The 
Argus, too, might have written another paragraph under the head of '• pub' 
lie opinion."] 



24 

TS. The Press.— Republican in&tilulions are in danger when Executive patron- 
ese corrupts the nr-.tural ally of libert}'. , , r 

14, r^e Dmner.— A Republican substitute for pensions and titles— valueless for 
its viands and wines, compared with its visible manifestation of public gratitude for 
public services. • i »» « 

The following song, written impromptu for the occasion by Mr. b. 
Woodworth, was then sung with great effect by Mr. Joseph Hoxie :— 

SONG. 

Freedom's Sons— to whom belong 
Hearts and arms sincere and strong, 
Festive rites, and patriot song, 

Join in revelry : 
While the sparkling rubies swim 
Round each mantling goblet's brim, 
Quafl' them ere their light be dim, 

Drink to liberty. 

Think what cause of joy is ours, 
in this land of fruits and flowers, 
Splendid towns, and shady bowers, 

Blest with liberty ; 
Freed from sceptre, crown, and throne, 
Independence is our own, 
Never but to Heaven alone, 

Will we bend the knee. 

Raise the jjatriotic lay 

For our honored guest to day, 

He who boldly held at bay 

Foes of liberty ; 
He who late tonlendcd for 
Constitution, rij^ht, and law. 
When a manin&sWdwd he satv. 

In the treasury. 

Laurels for that silvery brow. 

He whose pn sence cheers us now, ^ 

He who nobly scorns to bow 

For favour or from fear. 
He whose every act imparts 
Aid to our domestic arts. 
We unite with hands and heaits, 

To bid him welcome here. 



The following letters were then read by the President of the day. 

New- York, March 26, 1831. 

Gentlemen — I thank you for your invitation to the dinner to be given to 
Mr. Burges on Wednesday. 

It would give me much pleasure to meet you and your friends, and to 
aee him; but indispensable obligations call on me to be in Boston on that 
day. 

I pray you, gentlemen, to accept the tender of my regards and good 
wishes. DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Toast enclosed from Mr. Webster : 

15. The United States ; while other nations are moulding their governmeDti into 
free forms, may we not break the pattern. 

Albany, March 28lk. 183L 

Gentlimen, 

I HAVE been honored with your invitation to a dinner to be given to the 

Hon. Tristam Burges on the 30th instant, for his able services to the 

country in exposing the maladministration of the general government. 

I heartily approve of this expression of patriotic feeling towards an indivi- 



2 



n 



dual whom I liighly esteem, and whose public course has been so spTendid 
and useful. 

II is with veal regret that I decline the high honor and gratification of din- 
ing with you on the 3()ih; my long al>serice from my family, anu my i"'ivate 
c()Mcerns, prevent me fi-om aece[)iing your kind and flattering invitation. 
I heg you to believe that nothing would bti more grateful to my feelhigs 
than to unite with you, and those you represent, in doing honorto a dis;i:i- 
"uished statesman, and in expressing my marked disapprobation of the ge- 
neral course of policy pursued by the administrators of the general govern- 
ment. 

I have the honor to be, most respectfully. 
Your Obed t serv't. 

A, SPENSER. 

Isaac Pierson, 

Elias H. Ely, & 

Win. Sam'l. Johnson, Esquires. 



Newport, March 28, 1831. 
Gentlemen, — I have just received your letter of the 24th, inviting me lo 
attend as a guest, a public dinner wh'ch a number (»f the citizens of your 
City will j>ive to my friend Mr, Bi I'ges on the HOth inst. as an expression 
of their sense of his decided conduct and able services to his country, and 
regret that my engagements will not permit me to ac<;ept the invitation. — 
1 siiall, however, as r citizen of Rhotie Island, be fnliy c<.mpensated foe the 
pleasure I should enjoy in joining you on the ocr-.asii.m mentinnei'. by the 
reflection, that your ex|M'essioii of a[)probatiori of the able and efficiei.i ser- 
vices of Mr. Burges is an honour to s.ll whose Representative he has been. 
Permit me to add to the many which the occasion will, no doubt, produce, 
my sentiments, to be adopted if thought proper. 

With great respect, 

1 am your very obedient servant, 

J. PEARCE. 
Col. Wm. L. Stone, &. W, S. Johnson, Esq. 

JVeu) England's Jewels — rendered more precious by iho high estimate of their 
value, made by the enlighltued and patriotic citizens of New- York. 



VOLUNTEER TOASTS, 



Lov 
son 



By Col. Trimihull. — Rhode Island — Equally distinguished by the Beauty and 

ivelinessol her daUj^literi, as by the iiiieiligence, /irnmess, and rectitude other 
wv^ns. 

By the 1st Vice President, Thos. R. Smith — Poland, struggling to escape from the 
iron grasp ofTyraiuiy. May Providence raiije up fur her a Wtishiiigton — then shall 
she be Irt-e. 

By P. H. Schcnrk, 2d Vice President. — The American System — A System recom- 
mended by Washington, advotatt d by Hafnihon, defeniied by Cla), ajid wisely 
adopted by ihe Ajneri( an People — May it ru-ver be nnlbficd. 

By Mr. Chanfllcr, :id Vice Piesid(-ni. — iVie JMechanics and Working men through' 
out our Country — livery art to which they have luiiied 'Jieir atletUion has becoine 
brifihter, from the exquisite pohsh of dieir workmanship. May lh« ir united e/forts 
lenevv thebl!^tte of tliat great jol) so hand.-ornely tinished by < nr Revolutionary Fa- 
thers; now grown rusiy, from having fallm into die hands oi' botchers. 

By FI. Booraem, 4lh Vice Presidetit. — The present Cabinet — " Behold, my son, 
with how litile wisdom the world inijoverned." 

By E M. Benyman, F^sq. — Henry Clay of Keniiuky — beloved in the East and in 
the West, honoured in the North, and envied in '.he South — May he soon occupy the 
highest place in tlie {^ifi of a free People. 

By B. 'J'itiany — Our distinguished Guest. — Like the key-stone of an arch, the 
harder it 'is pressed, the fitmcr it stands. 

C 



26 

By Joseph Iloxie.— The erasing Cieiks of the Gpnoral PoM OfRco— Thrir skill in 
that line would be iriore ustlully firi|)U.)€;d iii erasing i\\,ni ihe Nation's AikiuIs ll.e 
History of tue jiieiieiit Ailimiiibtiiiiioii. 

By a Ciiest. — I'lir SL-cieimy of SihIp — Mi-y ! !■<- 'H^st puhl.ic di'itifr ii: tlii.«< « it\ be 
giv*-!! at '« yacA:so/t y:^OM.<f£," at tli«- txpLiise oV " the PuiH,"ni.d not at the Poor 
House, Ht Ihe'fJipeiibe of ttie public 

^By Wtn. L. Stone.— J/a;7m F«rt iJi/ren— Wanird, (wo or thrre confidential joiir- 
nejMi^n Politicians, to travel and do stMihII jobs on shares. 'J'liose who are out .'f 
favor with their (oruier niasie'S w ill hf^ pieieMed. 

Mjuern Folitics — Winch ami at otticc-, by atiutting neither to seek nor fo detline 
it. 

liy R. C. Sands. Stale Rights, iiest prolected when earh Stiitc is represented by 
Bts own cit zen.B, ai(ach« d by i du< aiiun and prini iple to it.« own ii.leit >is. 

By VV. S. Johnson, "jyte Little .Sya^es— u presenleti by Burges and Clayton, will 
'lot want power. 

Old Hickory. Don't work a willinj; hor?e to death. 

liy James Uenedict. Henry Clay— The earlieal and most cOicient advocate of 
Aiiieriean lii(iui3Jr\. 

Rhode Island »• Domestics "—May they ever, as they now, be in " demand" in 
New-York. 

By H TennP3<:ean. John Qvincy Adams, in whom arc c(<njoined the high «|nali- 
!ie- which entitle m ui to the appi ii.tlion — illustrious. 

By Sa nuel H Jt-nks. The doctrine of Rvfonn — -o zealoUhiy [ireached iconic three 
yearsaj^o— Us prailic al ellVi t is drsi nb.-d in the eJK ul.ition of ihe i<.n<iianl fanatic, 
who prayed for " deformation upon deformation, lintd the »vhole world should be t/<- 
for/ned.''^ 

Granite and Crccodilc tear*, >h( d by J\ ew Hampshire and ^wos Kenditll.on 
tn( et nji.aftej u ion:; abseme. 

By 'Vho^u-\s R.S\i\\\.\\.— Mechanics and Working men ; their arm, the stiength; 
Iheif indiJi-try, the wealth of the I'ati n. 

The loyal Governor of j\l\w-York, nho will submit to the dt ri>ion of the Sh- 
pteme (Jonif — if ii is m his (a\or. " Man's wis-dom is but a s-nr.ili I <:hr." 

tState rights— Likv individual rijjhts, to be asceitained and settled in the constitu- 
tional moiU-. 

By. Mr. Tisdale. — The American System— f^o where better .yun or wove than in 
Rode Island. 

Heirenchment and Reform — Piodigally promised l)y lho?e now in power, .«peedi- 
ly to be t fleeted by otht r hand-;. 

By Daniel Wa} land. — The national menagerie at H ashington. where all the 
be«s!s and creeping; things are j-nli-ei vimt to the < nnnin^ of a jilurtin 

B\ Mr. Dtrr. The principlesof Ritional IAI)erty — lllii>trate(i l)y ilie ConMitiition 
of the Unit) d "states and the cnndiiion of the Amercan I't-opk-. — Mav the\ have ir e 
tonise ill all li.eir pow« r, until liny have shaken to their centres the de.»p »lic s\s- 
leriiS of Contiiui.tal Knrope. 

By H. R. \Na((l. Reform — Xerox f\\n% to tlr professions o( the Administralion, 
and not a-< ilhistrat< d In l\tt'<r practice. 

By VVi ham Stevens. Damel D. 7'ompkins -The c^iU- and firm friend of the 
Ariieriean syslftn. 

Our Minister to Russia. — Stray* d or s((»lei), whoever will lake him up and return 
him to his friends in Vir^iinia, shall be handsornely rewarded out ol the publii. trea- 
sury and no questions a-'ked. 

" The Genius of the Earthquake. " — He has been rnnnl/iuly and adroitly ;.'ot cut 
of the country by an innocent politician. — Qnety— Wonder'if the veto yvill be iuter- 
J)o?e(I to hi.s return .-' 

The Bark of the United States— 'NtA like the tolterinj? walls of ancient Jericho, 
jo be bl(-.vH down In the rtnle and irregular blast.« of a ram's horn. 

By M. L. Divis — Our political friends, who mean what they I'BOFUSS; f=nd so 
ir.eaning, would indignantly spurn all compromise short of the immediate object of 
their pro'Vssions. 

By \l. H Ely. — The Administrat'on of Andrew Jackson — Its« fTect upon (he na- 
tirn ha-; been like that of thunder upon liquor, in bringing the diegstoiiie lop. 

Mr. Tazi well'-, opini(jn of the Piesidenl. — •' H<- dot s v« ly well so (iir as he knows." 

'The Present Cabinet —A mere mechanical mixtuie, not a chemical solution — ier.= 
dily precipiiaied l)\ Clay. 

Our Country. — [t is a glorious counlry— Let those who dislike it leave it. 

Our Guest. — An honourable example of iNew-Eiigland spirit and industry — e Me» 



27 

chanic in earlier life, a Lawyer, a Judge, a Statesman, and in every place, by coin= - 
iiiifii ti)ii-« 11', a Mrt'icr U'oikit.Hii. 

Henry Clay. — Tliouj^li we arc all made of clay, we trust Iletuy Clay was made 
for ns 

• liv J. C.'H:ir(. — IVehsier and Rurges. — tiiher of ihem ib a full-blooded animal — 
tak« II i<);^«lli« r (I « y art- m wtiole u am. 

l>\ i\. I'lriid^!.. — The Lioii ot' thf Etst, and ilie Siar of the West— may (he pow- 
er ol (he foriiKT, aud tht; li^htui'ihe l.iUtr, it-Moie coiitiduiice in our jjeiitral goveili- 
iii« lit. 

T/'C Hon. John Randdph. — The next time he kicks a .s7.f^/), may it prove a 6eN ' 
ttiinu; /tarn. 

'J'lie CLerokeet — VH«i<:aIs on the ?..il wii^Te C>od niiuie them fn e. 

Cimwinlort Biiinhrid^e, i\\v iiatiuii\-. prich — .Vbi\ the ptcpifN indi|>nation rest 
upoii !h(? iii^'i^iiioia ol ii.9 itiiiDV.il V iilikc vviili tie prxponeis lur (he dtb.iuction ot 
Old li<in> (lf'>. 

liy (i. Fi/iiiiait. 7'fic Slate ofJVew Yotk. — May ii> Cloy »o 1 | n \e so stifl tl at 
Mill li I Villi UunM.'> tif;i-.>'ii liiiiii. II iiMV not he iilili to jiNiDjjfii a lu' iiiW lhrou«h It. 

Till' Gliil e and Tilfgfo} li — I h« p(,i sli.iild m \t i < nil it,e kiiii. Llai k. 

'• i'/.e U'liiiHo/tkt^t.t A- " — "It hiih Lien ti^ us «// a fiuitful source of national, 

S()<'i;l*", !iMI pt-lM.|li»l llrip|lll.l "t.." 

77/f Ann ll'ortd — Uid eiioii::h lo fake rare of itself. 

The Serrttary o/".S7.i/e. — " llu (liat ^Iallds upo:» a slippery place, makes nice of 
no -I ill- I old III ^^n) hini i p " 

'I ht: Dej'enJa-j of the Constitution — Posterity will associate them wiiii the fra- ■ 
met .■« ili< M i'(. 

7V/e ConslUvllcn — The first, Im-I, ai d only l.o|-f of salViy to cur Countiy. 

'J'heStCreliry oj' U'ai:—*' Kn(>\\\ d^.. j* power." 

'I'liie j\tul>Jirtiti(in p iity. — •• In vain, al;i> .' in va-n, \e liallant fi w !" 

Cith:iiJii and Van Buren — Itie ioUifsl ^uniinit?, bull) in chutch and s'ate, are ' 
isilaiiiiil inil\ I13 > asiU'.-iand itpiihs." 

y.'C SiC.rttnry nj' Slate. — ' I'lii- wise di-iriist the ton fair Fpoken man.*' 

Juhfi Handiilpit, of Roanoke. — ihe \ ill.rn.r of e\ery aiJniiiiisliation tscepl that by 
\\l'icli h<- li.is lufii lioiijiiit. 

Vii li ire I an I hts man Dulley, or internal imprnrcmcnt and t' e Tariff 

" Wiiit h i- ihe s.d.- fial I iii<i>t lio wiiuai i I am widi b mIi ; • aih aiiiu halh a liiiiid ; 
and, ill ituii la.e, Iha^in:; hiild ofboih; ilu-y who I abo'il and d snu-inber nie." 

TheCibintt — A sohit.oii ()!' ihf probleiii a> 10 ihe leasl nn.dcuni of intflUcl by 
uIihIi a iiai or 1 an l.f ::o\'( tned. 

The old Fiig.ite L'on.stitvtii>n — S^ivi d b\ God's j;rare, and not by the «;ood taste 
of ilu- pnseiii t. ab.iii ', fioin b< in;: piiltid Ui pit< j >. 

7'h'e Hceniiig Tu^t and 'the Cou'rnr- atVl Enquirer.—S\\\\rA.\)' and vulgarity 
uniii d. I'.ii iioiiiic fra'iiiiii 

Tin- Cay if K luniky, i-i the hands of American uoi'Iiineri, will be moulded into 
the l:ij;l « .-I t Ihce in the ;;i t of a fiee peo|ile. 

The Hicki.ry of 'I ennessir. — L kc the poplar of Loinbatdv — it bears iniiuine:ab!c 
leavr? and liiami 1^, Imi n< i hi 1 fin ( noi hlo?so«ii. 

IJy a,Gi)esi. ./uckdcn.'ans. — Mo} thi y d.e puhlitalh — tuin to Clay and rI^e 
iiicotinp iltie. 

7'/;e American Instituie —^Wvr disp!«\p of .Ameiii an invention s.nd skiil. the be^J 
roniineiKaiy on the btale le>soii tauj^ht by forei^neis, that we ate yet too \oun;j; to 
elollM- oiirset\e<. 

J/on. Danitl IVeb tsr. — A Planet ri>en with full aplendov:- in tl e A^orthern Hemi- 
r/ihere, wrin h 1 mils a ((iii>tanl sliea-n o! glorious Vi^ihl 'l"heonl\ daik spots on its 
di-k me Llherty and Un On., ntio and forerer, one and //« eparahle 

liy MoiliiiH r M. J.i< Kmmi. — The An^erican Htess — A iNaiional ble.-sinj '.<heu in- 
It lli'^eiit and pur. — a natu nil 1 ll'^'' ^\ h« n inis^nidt-d and rorii.'pt. 

lis J. A. .Sid.lj.— V'/je Union of Ihe States. — The panoply of our sfri ngth. VVilh- 
eri 1! be ihe arm (i.Ji: »vo:jid ii.dil\ v.ssa'l il. 

Hv II. Ci. Giiuiii The Fin-niers,Mtchan'C3,Se'a7nan,nn<I etiur Working JSlin, — 
(!i;- lioiic Mild .s ni w ol the co<iiiir\. — M^\ Uie tiisl piincples i,f naiine induce it cin 
to sll^!ain ai.d lo-'i r Amuuan Itniflsliy, as the onl) sure intans ot national gr<at- 
iiie>s and ind, peiidt nci'. 

The M chiriic and Mnmf'actvrirg IriU I'c^ts fJVcv}- Y01 k — "^ liey 1 (w f nibrace * 
JM«ie iliaii one lia f ol oar we.iiili, wCitl;, and pti^&icjl poutr, and lluy ate rapidly/ 
expanding and strengtfieiiiiig. 



28 

Internal Improvement, Cannls and Rail-roads— -yitiy they t xlend from sea to sea, 
and ih« livfr to \\\e <'»(!>* of the caith. 

Tt.e B'lld Eagle. — May hi!» eye retain it.« Ii^hliiiii<r, nrici his wing'nrver lire. 

'J'he Varijf'.- — Supporud by all };(«)d tii« ii, (>|)p(tsed by none l>ut d<'rria«;oj:n<'S. 

Public Iitstruclion — Fiee >clu «>ls, ihe oid* sf( ur i\ <•( \)iih{H»\ fie«(loni, In \vhi< h, 
if lo any human a>i»n(y, tlie world must be iudtbit d for a novel phenonieiion, ihe 
old a^of'i Repnbitcau (iifVeinnii n'. 

Ovr Fg, tfiiihtrs — I \>* y nt v« r .»-hna»!» from thtir duly, ihough dt;ath slood al the 
door. Go tli'jii and do lilie\v!<f. 

2^6 American Feople. — Tnif Repiiblirans — Thry like bpiter a plain licRces 
of R'lode l>land. dian the liii«(1 and si-ila!i«d phriipo!* ntiar\ loth*- Rn«>ian Antociat. 

T/ie President's vinos oj'ti.e Ctinsiilutiun. — "'FoinHd in ihe iimes^ and diawn 
from ihe ^af:f ;• of ihf Rfvcdnlion." 

Hv B Deniill. The in( rcajf and pfrrnanrnt ])rospf'riiy ci( cnw a'^iii nl'urai intt r- 
csls, which can oid} !)«' < rt<" (< d li\ pi(il« niiti; :\liinii;a< iijm ? and Cmnn «i( e. 

By W. B'lrjif^s. Audi eiv ./acfc.son. — Mnv his m xi an b lion be ihe hnrni'aL'e 
and n(»t ihr Pf«->id< n<\. — In ilttfn\-i \;c u>n\ fii «l uposr, in ihe lat-t d.s<. pjioinlna til. 

H'Zfkinh JViltS. — I tit' alile di fn.der of llu- A nfiiian <'\siiin. 

Khode IJiti'^ Girls. — Thcu^h of rn !in<i. n< vim fmnid waininjr. 

By rt Giit'.Hl. 'I'le Annricnn SyAim — nw « \i« ndi d :« i>il z Hl' fl ou'< r, its gi nial 
inlhifncv-s as broad as onr lirtilor \ . and as vari.-nsas onr in(bvidual Wants. 

'Jlie jVi^sion oJ'Jofin Randolph in hvsfia — A di^uiai < to die na'ion. 

By Jas. I. Van AUii. y'he Amrr c in Si/st(m — Tv ijie >n. cet-fnt opeialion t»f 
which i< the Ci'v <>(' Ncv.-Yoik nininlx ind« l»'i d for hf r nnt Xiinp'i d pio-fxrity. 

Adam Smith's J\[(i,iit'i. — Bii\, &,t. amended an<l adapt* d to our int ridian, \ iz. 
bij\ where um n-.i- na\ llie « a>ie>-t. 

'I'hr policy whici behi |)iomotes commerce, is ihal {Uilicy whii h 'nrnij-hcs die ma- 
terials for ( omnierce in the ;^ri:ate»t aljund nice ui.d best adapt* il to die Wrttils (-f 
mankind. 

The result oj" ovr Revolutionary Contest — A blaze of political » fiulgctice was 
S-hefl upon (he. world uh.ch will la?;t tor aj^es 

Our Country — Iti; prospeiin iniei wov« n with the American system, — its inde- 
pendence wiih Anierif an Mannfaclnies. 

By T. Bussing. — May he be « nt ofl'uiiha shillng, 
Who i.s a foe to warp and tihins;. 

The champions of South American lUeity., and the author of the Greek rcvolu' 
Hon — United the \ live m lie heai t> ol their (ounliy men. 

The Judiciary of ihe Unite! States — The bulwark of il5 Constiliiiion. 

By John M. banlbnh. American JManuf'ni tares. — " Biactite ii.akt S perfect." — 
May thti experiett* e ofthe past lie a le.«i^nll for the fumre. 

May the r.ext ifmhing d«y al U'athingion ii.ake a clear riddance of the pie- 
sent rubbish. 

'» The Little Red of Missouri" (Senator Barton) —The friei.d of Henry Clay and 
the -XJnericaji Sxstein. 

The present Administration —^'' Mene, Metie, Tekcl, Upharsin."- — Weigh* d in 
the balance of public opiiiif>n, and found wanting. 

By D. Mallory. President Clay. — May he reward his frieiidi without pun sling 
his enemies. 

By Mr. W. Hart, of Troy. Our Mlnistir io R.tssia,—^' Like P.ddy's flea, j ut 
your finger on him, atid by ny scwl he i&i»'t tiiere." 

Rejected Toasts. 
Burgca and Cambrcling — '* An ea;;le {(.weiing in his j,ride ofpiare, 

Was by a mousing owl biauUd al," 
but neither killed norhp.r.-iM d. 

Our Commercial Reprejentation — A small body, not ag£rand'zed by elevation. 

" I'i-imies are pijimies still, ihough pen-lud on Alps." 
C. C. C. De minimis non curat lex. 

The dinner was in all rospccfs a popular as well as a bnlliant onterlain- 
jhent : and the good, enthii^isislic h'eling which prevailed among the (om- 
pany must have been ins };iatifying to their distinguish* d giir si as Iho 
remarks drawn from him by their ccnnplimcnlary tf>ast ceitainly w«i« 
trt them. If Ihera was any thinji ti» sadden ilie merriment of this feas*, it 
Was the refleciion, thai the indignation I'lid the mirth which the remaiksof 
Mfo Burges could not and did not fail to extitej \\ ere al the expense of our mi- 



29 

sernble CRhincf. And yet tliis feeling is soothed, and changed into pride, 
liy the consideration tliat onr trnly glorious country, and its cunstiti.tion, 
can afftird to stipport snch a set of rulers for four yirars. Any oihir )jo- 
vernrnHut in existence would have bet-n l»n»ken down in four months w ith 
siioii niHU at its liend ; biit-there is a power in the charter of liberty framed 
by our faiher*. too mighty to be destroyed even by Mr. Van Buren's plan o( 
rewards and punishmenis. 

C'»l. Kiiapp's references to the liistorical facts which will always make the 
small but patriotic Slate of Rhode Island proud of her annals, and en- 
aljle her to assert her claim to be in Jhe front rank of the nations w h(» Ijave 
vindicated the liberty of mankind, were singularly felicitous and promptly 
understood, as was evident tVom the applause they elicted. 

The arrangements for the dinner, which was set out iti the assembly room 
at the City Hotel, were very good. The decorations at the late fancy liall, 
wliich weic in very good taste, remained 'J he national flag was displa\ed 
i'l feslooiis and dra;>ery in evrry direction. 'J he spectacle was a sp ei.did 
one as a mere picture ; and the provijjons uid credit to Mr. Jei iiings' krow n 
skill; but the moral ertVct was what uemost admired. The c< mpjsny 
were both instructed and (Jeligliled l»y the expostti n of our national lela- 
tions, and the manner in which they have lieen played with by Van Buien 
&, Co. — but there was an honest patvi()ti<r feeling iibviously exhibited, indi- 
cating a determinaiion among the citizens prrser.t 'o effect a rent lefoim. 

'i'iie Committee, and alt p.-esent, w ere Vtfiy much in(it=!)tMl to Mr. Jr.s« ph 
Tloxie, wiio acted as tua»t-uiaster. and announced in a clearand silver-toio d 
voice, the se.ntimenis whic'i were offered, for his eflicieni services on the 
occasion. Tlie eniertainment was one of the most biilliant ever given in 
this citv, and in no n->y surpassed even by the dinner previously given to 
thsi d!ii'.t?guisui;u Senator from Massachusetts. 



[Sevml of tho follovvino; Letters were not received until af- 
ter the 30ih, and we deem it proper to insert them all as an 
Appendi.x.] 



Mr. Kcii( Imd the honour Ir. recrlvr- ^hls morning a nn\c of invitatioi. in 
a niiblii; (JuiM.f^r 1<» Ut- giv.-n m Wedntjsday t.» IIk- n«»n. I rstam Bllr■.•^•, 
mu\ he begs hnv.- 1.. express his siiicore regrets ih}.t n pieviui.s engagement' 
will necessariiy de])r;ve him ot' thu honour and i.ici.su.c ».f iauMui.ng as a 



glH-Sl. 



To Isaac Piersoa and oUiers, Committee of Arrangement. 



Judre Thomp-on regrp1> that he iso])li2^d to lenvetown for Potislike^p- 
§ie«in Wednesday, whirl) j.revenis his having the hononr of accepting tlx^ 
Hivitation to the j»nl)lic ('inner given to [Ion. T. Hnrges. 

Messrs. I. P.erson a:id o'hers, Committee of Arrangements. 



MidJlelown, Conn. March 2S, ISSlC 
CSentlcmcn, 
I liav.- received yonr polite invitation to the dinner which i« In he given 
on the :VMh instant, hy the citizens of yonr city in honoin- of the honoii.a- 

ble Mr. Binges. . , , . , . 

For yonr civility in thu. noticmg me, be pleased to accept my most grate- 

ftrl ackiuiwledgments. 

Were it possible for me to do s >, I shonid with geal p'easnie atten I on 
the occasion. Nothing wonbi afford nie higher giatifna'ion, did circnni- 
stances permit, than to unite with you in the e.pression of respei I tor 
which it is intended. But the si'uation of my private busiiuss, pait cnla:iy 
in consetinence of my late ah en«te. so imperion-ly ri (piires my attention 
atliomc, that I regret to t-ay it mil Ite out of my power. 

With fcenlirnenis cf the highest lespect, 

1 ixtn, Gentlemen, 

Yutn* obt. servant. 

Wm. L. STORRSo 

Blessr.'o Tsiac Pierson, 

Ehws 11. Ely. > Committee of arrangements N. Yoik. 

\\ m. Siunl. .Johnson. '^ o > 

Wm, L. Hone, Es ps. 



Ila tford, March 23th, lc;31. 

Genllemep, 
Be pleased to accept my thanks for your n(»ilie invifa'Ior! to idtend. as .i 
guest, the Public l)inn«'r' to be given Mr. Bulges. Piofesvioi a! engage- 
ments render it impossible fjf me to attend, it gives me pleasure loMil= 



31 

tipss (lie favnurnble rrc;ard yon hear t<» Dtp dislingruished and mprHnrious 
rrprfspnlalivp from Kliod** bland; it mjist h«; gratiiyinfi to him to Iihvh (he 
sipi-riba ioti ofsisch g. iiilcnieii in your ciiy, and lo receive this public testi- 
moriiai of his fidelity and worth. 

\\ ith scnliments of great e.sterm and respect, 
Your lluinble Ser\ant, 

Wm. M. ELLSWORTH. 

Messrs. I^aac Piersnn, ) 

Klias IL Ely, > and others, 

U'uj. S. Juhuspn, ) 

New-IIaven, CSth i^farch, 183L 
Gentlemen, 

I have the honour to acknowledsie the receipt of your fa= 
Vnnv of the 24lh ('uliich came (o hand this morning;, invltiiiij me to a pub- 
lic diin^r on tlu; :i()th, whicli a number of the citizens of New-York pro- 
pose giving to the ILm. 'I rislaiu Buigiis, in approbation of' his deciiled 
c Miduct and aide services to the country, in exposing the mal administra- 
tion (if t!ie Gniicr.d Government." 

It wonh' give me much pb-as:ire to accept the invitation if n^y health 
woidd (leiuiii me to «li» so. IJm I am i\t prpsient (|UIh ati in\alid,in conse- 
(jucn<:e of a tVvi-r whi<:h I had in Washington, the effects? of which are sli.i 
I pon me, and rend, r me unable to h ave l.orne. 

Be pleasHtl to accept my respectful a<;knowl« dj;ments for the honour you 
hrtve done me. in thinking of me a^ a guest on the occasion refeired to; and 
believe me to l.'e your obedient and humble servant, 

11. 1. INGERSOLL. 
To Wm. Samuel Johnson and Wm. L. Stone, 
Esfjuires, Cunuuittce, *&c. 



Trrnfon, (N. J ) Marrh .'^O. 18.11, 
Gentlemrn, — I beg yoii to aocrpf my resprclful at knonledg. inent? for the liormr 
of \i.in- iinittiun to !.«■ prrssfiit "asH Guf.-(" al dii; dnmer to l)e given, this d tv, 
In " a nninher or the Citiz: ns of New-Y<>ik, who s-.;e de^iious ot ex pi casing to the 
Hi n 'rii.-lam Biirges their l.ijili 3<ii.se of his d. tided tondiict and able service* to 
the Coimiiy. iti (Xpf)-ing the i:i;jl-athnini?tiaii(iii of the General Goveinnieiit." 

It \v< iild h:ut^ iidordi d me "sincere |ile«siire to -Hrcept votn- invitation, l)ut your 
ieiier, fluted on the i4.li, and pott naikt d on ilie 'iGdi, was not leceivid until late 
last night. 

I am. Sirs, very respectfully, «fec. 

SAMULL L SOUTHARD. 

To Isaac Pet-con, "^ 

K!i^s H Elv, [v r> ■ , , 

tVdIiam L. Stone, J 



New York, March .30, 18.31. 
t Jenl'einen, — T had the honor, on arriving in the t iiy last evi niiig. (o nceive }oiir 
note of the -.Mlh irist. retjiieftiii; inv atlei.danie jit a pi.biir d iiiser to he gi*«n this 
(I'sy to my niiu h respecii d l'ri<Mi(i Mr. Biirge«. It would have been highly agieea- 
b!e to me to be piet-ent on this oit as-ion, and I ninth regret iVtt l\u: ^tate of my 
h. al h is sucli, after the fai^iie and txposin* o' tlie journey }eai«'iday, ad to put it 
out of my power to accept ^(.in- knid inviiation. 

1 have the honor lo be, with the highest respect. 
Gentlemen, most faithfully jours, 

EDWARD EVERETT. 

To Messrs. Isaac Picrson, Elias H. Ely, Wm. S. Jonnson, and VV. L. Stone, Com" 
m Ktc, &Co 



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